Green Hotels in San Francisco, CA

San Francisco is a popular eco-friendly destination in the United States. As a city, they’re at the forefront of recycling programs, sustainable building trends, and energy independence initiatives. The bulk of the city is also quite compact, making it easier for travelers to get around on foot or via their excellent mass transit system, thereby reducing carbon emissions from extra car traffic. And of course, there are plenty of green attractions, too, from the beautiful Golden Gate Park to eco-cruises and whale watches.

If you’re looking to visit San Francisco as part of an environmentally conscious vacation and are looking for green hotels, there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing your hotel. Newer hotels should be built to LEED standards and should use recycled materials and energy efficient appliances as much as possible. Hotels should practice recycling throughout and should offer optional housekeeping for guests who want to reuse towels and linens. It’s also important to be eco-friendly with dining options, too: featuring organic produce, sustainable seafood, and locally sourced food on the menu are top priorities.

Consider one of these hotels if you’re in search of a green option on your next trip to San Francisco.

Axiom Hotel

As a LEED Silver-certified hotel, Axiom features the best green practices across the board. They use PressReader to provide paperless news to their guests in lieu of print publications, install motion sensors which allow rooms to power down when guests leave, recycle throughout the hotel, use energy efficient lighting, and feature dual flush option toilets.

Galleria Park Hotel

Poised with a great location to encourage public transit use or walking, the Galleria Park Hotel features green endeavors like offering incentives to guests who reuse towels and linens, including recycling bins in all guest rooms, and installing eco-friendly toiletries. As part of their Green Dreams program, they also work to reduce waste and pollution, conserve energy and water, and even use organic cleaning products.

The Good Hotel

This hotel features furnishings from almost exclusively recycled and reclaimed materials, offer eco-friendly toiletries, and serves organic food. They even have free parking for hybrid cars and complimentary bicycles to help visitors get around this green city with little carbon footprint.

Hotel Vitale

You’ll find in-room recycling, energy efficient appliances and bulbs, eco-friendly bath products, and initiatives to encourage guests to reuse linens and towels. Even the restaurant offers locally sourced, organic food. It’s also close to mass transit, allowing visitors to get around the city without needing a car.

Inn at the Presidio

This hotel has a serious commitment to green, sustainable lodging. It’s LEED Gold-certified, uses organic cleaning products, encourages guests to reuse linens and towels, recycles and composts, utilizes paperless check-in and check-out, and purchases locally whenever possible across the board.

Intercontinental San Francisco

Recently classified as a LEED Gold-certified building, this hotel adopts a number of ambitious green initiatives to continue this exciting trend. They recycle and compost, offer reusable glassware and silverware, employ solar power for certain parts of the hotel, use Energy Star appliances, conserve water through reducing unnecessary laundry, install energy efficient lighting, and offer Eco Boutique toiletries.

Millwood Inn & Suites

An independent hotel just south of San Francisco, Millwood Inn and Suites has won recognition for their green efforts. They work hard to conserve water and energy, prevent pollution through recycling and composting, and minimize waste across the board. They’ve even won the Bay Area Green Business Seal.

The Orchard Garden Hotel

Billed as an “eco-friendly boutique hotel,” the Orchard Garden Hotel was San Francisco’s first LEED-certified hotel. The building is designed to reduce energy, water, and heat waste, they used Energy Star appliances, feature carpets with recycled materials, use organic cleaning products, install low-flow faucets and toilets as well as energy efficient lighting, and even offer a feature where guests can “turn off” the entire room when they leave to save energy.

The Orchard Hotel

The sister hotel to the Orchard Garden, the Orchard Hotel practices many of the same green policies and is another top option in a different part of town. Also LEED certified, this hotel offers many other sustainable practices like using local food and products wherever possible, installing Energy Stat appliances, utilizing organic cleaning products, composting and recycling everything possible, and offering toiletries in bulk dispensers.

W San Francisco

This Platinum LEED-EB certified building is among rarified company in the hotel industry. Lighting is energy efficient, heating/cooling systems are designed to reduce energy waste, motion sensors in all guest rooms keep systems from running when the room is unoccupied, and even public computers turn themselves off when they aren’t being used.

 

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