By Christy Harrison

IN THE PRODUCE aisles, in the dairy cases, and on the paper goods shelves, Bay Area shoppers have a respectable number of environmentally friendly products to choose from these days. But there's a whole world of goods and services outside the aisles of spelt flour and quinoa at your neighborhood health food store. When your late-night, corner-store shopping list includes rBGH-free skim milk and green cleaning solution, you might be out of luck. So what happens if you're hunting for something less common, like a green financial consultant or an environmentally conscious place to bring your laundry? Businesses aren't always in the habit of broadcasting the ecological impact of their day-to-day operating decisions, which can make it hard to find the ones whose practices reflect your own ethos.

Enter San Francisco's Green Business Program. Launched in early January by a network of city and county agencies including the Department of Public Health, the Department of the Environment, and the Public Utilities Commission, the voluntary program gives "green certification" to businesses with exceptional environmental practices. Participating companies must show they go beyond simple compliance with standards to reduce waste, minimize resource consumption, and prevent pollution.

San Francisco is following in the footsteps of four other Bay Area counties where GBPs are in place. However, the city is on its way to a goal of recycling 75 percent of solid waste by 2010 (well above the state-mandated 50 percent), and GBP precursor Clean and Green already rewards S.F. businesses in polluting industries like automotive repair that take steps to reduce toxic waste. GBP coordinator Virginia St. Jean says the sheer number of environmental programs and agencies here is one reason the idea of certifying businesses didn't catch on sooner. "[San Francisco has] so many bureaucracies with their own narrow-minded goals," she says. "We needed someone to steer all these groups in one direction."

Funding for new government programs remains almost nonexistent at the local level, and GBP is relying mainly on state and federal grants and the dedication of program employees – currently working pro bono, aside from an assistant hired with a $30,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency minigrant. St. Jean, also an industrial hygienist with the DPH's Hazardous Materials Agency, hopes GBP will be fully grant-funded in the future, but for now she's doing everything she can to squeeze the workload of the new program into existing ones such as HazMat.

GBP will extend the existing Clean and Green standards to cover a wide range of industries including food service, graphic design, and dry cleaning – and will educate businesses on becoming greener. The certification process includes general requirements like tracking water and energy usage and encouraging employee participation. Businesses must also show they take a certain number of actions to reduce solid waste and conserve energy, such as purchasing reusable supplies and installing energy-efficient lighting, or more complicated measures like renovating landscaping to include drought-tolerant plants. There's no financial reward for these improvements, but certified companies get to publicize their program membership – and hope such advertising will boost business.

It's no surprise the first applicants on the list (35 businesses have signed up so far) include progressive companies that have likely been certifiably green for years, such as the social change-focused New College of California, and Conscious Design, which provides affordable visual media to nonprofits. But even St. Jean seemed blown away by the Rosebud Agency, the first business she inspected. A small but reputable music agency representing artists such as the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Robert Cray Band, Rosebud uses rooftop solar panels to power its Upper Haight office. Owner Mike Kappus and his staff reuse every envelope and box they can and take packing peanuts to Mailboxes Etc. for recycling. Office compost is used to fertilize a garden out back, and one of the two bathrooms has a flush-as-needed policy. And Kappus is on a one-man crusade against junk mail and the waste it generates: "I send it back," he says. "Imagine if everyone did that: [the senders] would really feel the impact of what they're doing."

San Francisco produces about 2,400 tons of nonrecyclable waste every day, two-thirds of which comes from businesses. Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator with the DOE's Solid Waste Management Program, says individual companies could convert at least half of their trash to recyclable material by adopting measures on the GBP checklist. By composting, restaurants could get rid of two-thirds to 90 percent of their waste. Offices could divert as much as 75 percent by recycling more paper. And because businesses pay a reduced collection fee for compostable items and no fee for other recyclables, they stand to benefit from these measures. "A lot of businesses want to do the right thing, but only if it doesn't cost them more," Macy says. "We want to help them by providing incentives and making it as easy as possible."