San Francisco is working towards economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Economically, it aims to transition to a circular flow of resources where waste is eliminated and materials are continually reused. Socially, it focuses on improving public health through access to nutritious food, healthcare, and accommodating peoples' needs through community-oriented development. Environmentally, it works to reduce waste, maintain air and water quality, protect biodiversity, and transition its transportation system away from cars towards public transit.
2. Economic sustainability
“A sustainable economy will provide a good quality of life for all San Francisco residents without undermining
the biological and physical processes of the environment upon which people depend.”
San Francisco uses changing from a linear to a circular flow of resources. Linear transforms raw materials into
products and pollution whose ultimate destination is a landfill, the air or the water. In a circular flow, resources
are continually used, broken down, and recombined, waste is eliminated as discards become the resources of
reuse or of other production processes.
They create the foundation for sustainable economic prosperity by identifying the needs of an ecologically
sustainable economy and seizing the market opportunities involved in meeting them.
They include the integration of community values and purposes with those of commerce and the environment.
3. Social Sustainability
• Local opportunities for greater food production
• Locals have access to nutritious food
• Focusing on aspects of the environment that lead in improving
peoples physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
• Affordable, available health care, resources for health such as peace
shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable
resources, social justice and equity.
• Public information and education
• Peoples needs and desires for access to jobs, commerce, recreation,
culture and home are accommodated using a minimum of resources.
4. Environmental Sustainability
• Reallocating revenues and subsidies from the automobile to public
transit and other alternative modes
• Maintaining good air quality
• Providing food and shelter for migratory and resident birds,
biodiversity
• San Francisco has three fundamental approaches to reducing waste.
To avoid creating waste in the first place, to purchase durable,
repairable products and reusable packaging and to purchase more
products made from recycled materials.
• They have a water policy that creates sustainable water use to
maintain the water needs of the entire ecosystem
