Green Festival San Francisco 2013

Photo courtesy of @GreenFestival on Instagram

Green Festival® is the largest sustainability event in the world and continues to grow year after year. A project of Green America and Global Exchange, Green Festival was in San Francisco this past weekend, and lots of people came out to celebrate, listen to speakers, shop, eat, laugh, learn, and a whole lot more!

Global Exchange was there with a booth filled with Fair Trade products from our stores and staff eager to engage with visitors and chat about our various campaigns and programs.

Also in attendance was Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange’s Co-founder AND Green Festival Co-founder,who had this to say about the Green Festival this past weekend:

“It was packed both days with thousands of people, showing that we have already beat the corporations at their own game; commerce.“

According to Kevin, the human rights movement is making a transition from focusing on negative things we want to eliminate to putting more emphasis on the next system we want to create.

In this 7-minute talk (brought to you thanks to compostory) Dr. Kevin Danaher explains why and how we can transform the current system of profit-focused enterprise into a triple-bottom-line model that integrates social justice, environmental restoration and financial sustainability.

Take-ActionTAKE ACTION!

Did you miss Green Festival in 2013? Not to worry! 2014 Green Festival dates have been announced, and here they are…

2014 Green Festival dates:

  • New York — April 26-27 2014
  • Washington, D.C. — May 31-June 1 2014
  • Chicago — Oct 24-26 2014
  • Los Angeles — Nov 7-9 2014
  • San Francisco — Nov 14-16 2014

Want more info?

Green-Festival-GX-booth-volOn Earth Day weekend, Global Exchange traveled to New York City to join activists, local residents and a diverse array of green organizations and companies for the New York Green Festival. A few pics from the Green Festival Global Exchange booth are posted on our Facebook page.

Held at the Javitz Convention Center in Manhattan, the two-day festival featured dozens of speakers from the forefront of the environmental and green movements, over a hundred vendors selling green products and thousands of people from New York City and the surrounding area sharing ideas and engaging in conversations about ways to build a more sustainable future for both people and the planet.

Global Exchange, now celebrating our 25th anniversary, is a co-producer of the Green Festival. Along with our partner organization, Green America, Global Exchange created the first Green Festival in San Francisco 12 years ago. Since then, Green Festival has become the largest sustainability event in the country, this year happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York City.

Global Exchange was excited to be participate in the New York Green Festival. The crowd at the festival was diverse and engaged, and I had countless conversations with folks about a wide range of issues including the environment and sustainability, fracking and socially responsible travel, green building, the solar movement, and the importance of supporting small, local businesses in New York communities.

We distributed a lot of educational materials to attendees of the festival including information about Fair Trade, community rights efforts to ban fracking in California and resources about our Elect Democracy campaign which targets corporate lobbyists. 

All in all it was a fantastic weekend and a hopeful reminder of just how many great individuals, organizations and companies are out there working to build the green movement by creating the kinds of tools and engaging in the kinds of conversations we need to ensure our sustainable future.

Take-ActionTAKE ACTION!