locations. and so it is really been fun to see that something that we are doing here locally is having an impact nationally. we are also seeing that the highest participation rates in commuter benefits are actually at the smaller businesses. and so we are seeing a 36 percent participation rate among the employees at businesses with fewer than 500 employees, including those with fewer than 100. in the coming year, our program is focused on enhancing our business collateral and improving the material to provide more robust information to employers about options for a complete transportation program including commuter benefits but also the other transportation programs that we offer. >> we are also focusing more on enforcement of the ordinance, to insure that all businesses that are required to offer benefits to their employees, understand the requirements and are working in these programs

with us. >> and during a partnership of the office of economic and workforce development, smart will be conducting the out reach specifically targeted to businesses with neighborhood commercial corridor and this out reach will focus on commuter programs and also electric vehicle programs. and finally, the regional ordinance will be taking effect later this year, and that will effect the businesses with 50 or more employees in the 9 county bay area. >> and the san francisco commuter benefits ordinance will work hand in hand with the regional ordinance to expand the availability of commuter benefits. to more employees in the bay area. and i would like to introduce gabby conas coordinator for our energy program, thank you. >> good evening. like my colleague said i am here to talk about the energy

efficiency program. and implemented by the department of the environment. this program has not only helped the small business owners, save money by providing energy savings that directly support their bottom line but also lower the environmental impact. the first was power savers. >> and it helped over 4,000 small business owners, receive energy efficient lining retrofits and 2,000 projects were installed through the peak energy program. and currently the san francisco energy watch program has installed over 4300 and energy efficiency projects and local business and this number continues to grow. altogether the programs have installed over 10,000 energy efficient project and commercial establishments and saved an average of over $2800 in annual energy costs and paid more than 29 million in

incentives and just in the carbon emissions which is the equivalent to powering over 38,000 san francisco homes for a year. this program you can see the map, sort of. but these programs have touched every neighborhood and commercial corridor in san francisco. especially where there are high concentrations of businesses. the san francisco energy watch program is a partnership between the city and county of san francisco and pg&e, the small business owners qualified for high incentives and turn-key service and energy assessment at no cost and followed by a full project management by the staff. and this turn-key services are beneficial to small business owners who have limited time to

examine today's technology on the market today. >> we need of the financial help to the retrofit, and the program staff presents the optional pg&e financing. we have a 0 percent interest loan, they are also looking at this possibility through the power and staff or the water bill to offer great flexibility for the larger projects. >> the opportunity for improvement including lighting, and heating and ventilation and air-conditioning and the computer management network. here are a few case studies of small and medium sized businesses, you may be able to see that the incentive is better for each one of them and that is because it is based on the energy savings identifying the business and so the higher the energy savings, and identified, the higher the incentive would be and sf

environment would help the business owner identify these opportunities. in 2009, a grassroots campaign in preparation to this, the sf environment prepared the bi lingual and contacted local media and met with each district supervisor and at times the district supervisor and the director of sf environment will join the merchant walks. over 1300 assessments were conducted during this campaign and almost 90 percent of them were considered small businesses. and in 2012, the commercial lighting ordinance came into effect, and requiring the (inaudible) to be more efficient and this time there

is... (inaudible) with the t8 lamps and electronic ballast and this is reinforced by the department of building inspection and however, sf environment sent out a mailing to target the businesses, where the lamps are (inaudible). the material that was sent is a letter about the ordinance and the letter about the sfwatch incentives. also phone out reach was conducted to expand this effort. >> the program continues to be a presence in the business community, and through social media, and channels and the events like the small business week, and also, through multicultural media channels and professional organizations like the chamber of commerce and these small business administrations and san francisco council of the district association and more. >> all of the materials are available in chinese and spanish as well. and they have been recently

been updated and the new cases are periodically created so that they are updated. and also, we have a hot line, that the people can leave the messages in their languages and we get back to them and we also have an e-mail address and information in span sxish chinese on-line. moving forward, the department is looking to specialize in technologies like led light and refrigeration and targeting art galleries and restaurants and bars and retail stores and others. and sf environment is implemented the pilot refridgation project and it is a research data for commercial research units and qualified small businesses can receive 50 percent off concern energy of refrigeration units and in addition the program staff will continue to reach out to

multicultural communities, and by providing print, and website, on-line information, and either english or spanish. and also, programs that will customize the average campaigns in the local and tenant commercial buildings. >> and this is the slide that shows you a few of the san francisco energy watch participants. and as you can see, they will range from different sectors including non-profits and the sf environment sfaf looks forward to help the small business owners save, money and the environment and now i will introduce you to my kol laoelg, ana francel she will talk about the green business program. >> welcome. >> thank you for having me here

today. we will do a quick switch over of the power points here. >> all right. >> so, as gabby introduced me, my name is anna and i am the green specialist for the san francisco green business program here. and i am going to tell you a little about the program if you do not have any background about it but a little history and about the out reach efforts that we are doing for the small businesses here in san francisco. >> so, i apologize for the formatting here, but the san francisco green business program is actually part of a larger green business network in california. and the larger network is called the california green business and it is made up of 24 jurisdictions that have recognized the businesses across the state and the network uses the same model

with the older networks for having been implemented for over 15 years and we feel that the bottom that we are using is strong and work able for small businesses in 2006, the green business ordinance was into place at the time by the mayor newsome and later in 11 making official the california green business network as the official businesses of california. >> we connect all of the businesses to city resources and we work with the sectors in the recognition program. and the program is the one-stop shop for businesses in san francisco and so we feel instead of calling the ten different numbers for the service and resource and audits you can come to our program and you are able to educate you about what the business can take advantage of in the city. >> and so, in san francisco, across the city, we have 194

recognized green businesses, and they range from small to medium size in a variety of sectors such as the office retail sectors and restaurants and hotels and more, being green makes a big impact here in the city, economically and environmentally. and so, over the course of one year, our greens and businesses have reduced over 36 million pounds of co2 and diverted 1.6 pounds of waste by composting and waters through the greening measures that we asked them for undertake because that makes sense by using less water and less energy you will save those as an environmental impact because if you use this you will have less utility costs and that helps a business's bottom line. >> so with the program, we are there, each step of the way to help the businesses, and some

of the direct out reach that we do, to businesses, are through, indepth phone consults and on site visits from january, 2013, to june of 2013, so far we have conducted 32 sfoen consults and help to educate, and answer questions and set up audits and offer the rebates to a variety of small businesses and also on a larger scale, the program puts out a quarterly newsletter that goes out to the recipients and we also have a facebook page as to the social media front. and we also conduct different presentation and tabling to help different various groups understand more about the program and what they could take advantage of i guess. what this slide shows is that the green business program partners with a variety of other city departments to help the businesses get access to a

lot of the resources that the city provides and so we partner with the san francisco public utilities commission and the san francisco department of public health and the san francisco energy watch to create the opportunities for the businesses and what i would like to also point out is that any of the businesses in san francisco could take advantage of these resources so you do not have to be in the sectors for the recognition program. >> and so the program also reaches in the form of events that we put on to business and so these include the different mixers and the lunchtime meet and greets and the awards reception. >> and these could come together to learn from each other and network and find the team available for the questions, and as well, we use the rewards reception to publicly recognize the green businesses as seen in the top photo there and those are the rewards that they receive.

>> the green business program has created the campaign to have a more formal out reach pilot and we created a greater awareness through the program throughout the area of the city in the mission area specifically and to recruit further businesses in to the program. the campaign consisted of door-to-door out reach to 100 businesses surveys, mailers, adds and billboards. and this was a great chance for us to educate businesses about the benefits again about going green and about connecting them about the information that we have and this campaign that we found to be successful. we had a handful of businesses registered into the program and we felt that we did raise awareness around a local neighborhood area. in the coming year, we do hope to move forward with another campaign to increase awareness

of the program. >> the program was able to connect with the hotel council of san francisco and we are able in the partnership to put on a green business forum to put on hotels of san francisco and their partners and the forum was very well received by the council and so we are actually moving forward with a five-part workshop series to assist the hotels, to green themselves so this is a very industry specific out reach that we are trying to do here. and other items that the program is moving forward with, is a set of translated checklists for the office/retail and the restaurant sectors we will be having those created in spanish and chinese and those are currently in the process at the moment and so we are hoping to complete them shortly and as wells the second thing that we are working on further is the businesses work very hard to receive this recognition and to

achieve, the high environmental standards of the program and so we created a video to help the businesses market their green recognition to the clients and customers, so they understand what to do with the green recognition once they have received it. >> and, to conclude, the san francisco green business program does offer many benefits to businesses in san francisco. we as a program do strive to help the businesses go green and take advantage of the many free resources, services, audits and rebates offered by the city here. >> and so, from myself, and my colleagues, gabby and sue ellen thank you for having us here and we will take any of your questions if you have any. >> thank you very much. >> do we have any questions? >> i just want to thank all three of you for coming this evening. and one of the things that i would like to mention because like commuter checks, we do those in my office and we

started off with just five people, and now we are up to 47 of the employees that use the checks and they don't live in the city they live in the east bay and they use them on the ferry and that. and on your out reach, have you especially, with the green and everything, have you been going and contacting merchant groups to do these presentations? >> yes, particularly around the annual compliance cycle and we asked the businesses to submit an annual compliance form in and due at the end of april and particularly focused around that out reach, and we send information to the different merchants associations through the chamber of commerce and through the office of small business, information for them to share via e-mail, social media, and newsletter, with all of their members, and offering information about the ordinance, the requirements, and the option to do the free

consultations with our department. >> do you get a lot of requests to speak in front of merchant groups? >> we have a few and not as many as we hope for and so we do encourage everything to invite us to come. >> that is important. >> because i know in the green energy, like i saw some of the merchants from the upper market and i used to be involve with them and i know that you have been out there and i noticed some of those. but i think, the out reach, needs to be out there and especially with the over all green being in compliance, and just keep pounding away, and so you think that this is important. >> sure, great, thank you. >> director? >> well, one of the great things the way that the commuter benefits program is designed and entities that help to support the businesses, is that i talked to many businesses, that are or have four or five employees, and find it very economical in terms of administering the program and so even though it is mandated for 20 or over and

in the commercial districts we have a lot of businesses under that number in terms of employees. and the other thing that i just thought about, that would be kind of a dual incentive for any certified registered business with the city is that if they are a certified green business, if that is sort of noted, like you know, and noted as, you know, if you look in the vendor list and you also see that there are certified green business, and i don't know if it is... additional benefits that we do have is that we have two on-line green marketing directorries so we do definitely again, we want to try to have the ad additional public recognition for them and so we do list them on a city web page through sf green business.org and also through the bay area green business web

page so it would be great to find a way to cross-reference and put that information on the lbe list or what you have you. >> i would just like to call public comment on item five, if anybody would like to make the public comment on item five you will have three minutes to speak? >> anything none, public comment is closed. >> any other xhepts? >> thank you. >> thank you very much and this is very good and this is important and so thank you very much for letting us know that it is on tv and hopefully a lot of people are watching and we will get the commuter checks starting tomorrow. >> could you leave us some cards? >> okay next item. >> that brings us to item 6, a presentation on the events, activities and out comes of

small business week, 2013. that will be provided by adam strauss of strauss events. >> this is a discussion item only. >> welcome mr. strauss.

>> thank you all for allowing me to come after the 9th annual san francisco business week. >> if you could speak in the microphone. >> thank you all for president adam and commissioners, director, for allowing me to come back and speak with you about san francisco's small business week, we just celebrated our 9th annual san francisco small business week, and our biggest yet, with more than 4,000 small businesses participating in a range of different events. and, we were really excited with a lot of the out comes and the involvement of the new sponsors and new workshops and the new opportunities that we were able to provide. as mark quin likes to say we were not only the largest san francisco small business week in the country which is a

national sba program that happens throughout the country in small business is really a local program hosted by the local communities to celebrate small businesses and national sba also does the activities and really where the action is, and it is in the local communities. we are not only the largest small business week, we are the only small business week that really engages the small businesses and activities through mix you ares and through workshops and educational opportunities. for most, communities have a luncheon with a few awards and with the chamber and sba or a couple of groups in a hotel ballroom and so we really through our committee, at which i would like to acknowledge president adams as the co-chair and and really working to keep those engaged and to participate. >> and we in our surveys

education, is still more valuable than networking. and we found again, we have a lot of the small business owners who come year after year but also a lot of new ones, there is a lot of people out there still looking for resources. over all, for the events that we are able to count, there is a lot of events that happen on the periphery of the san francisco small business week that we are not able to track, and we had 3600, attendees and flavors of san francisco, and 76 of the board of supervisors and awarding in the ceremony and 1600 of the small business conference. and one interesting thing that we noticed this year is that our while our attendance was the same as it has been in the past, registration was down.

and so, in the past, because it is a free event, we register many more people than actually can fit in the room because we want to, you know that a lot of people just don't show up and what we attributed that to is that the economy is doing better unless the people are looking for workshops and less people are looking to network and more people are out there actually doing the work so we saw that as a good sign for the small business community. >> and the flavors of san francisco, are a kick off at the (inaudible) and we added a tent outside this year, to have about 8,000 square feet of additional space. and we did not add many more tables, and we did add a few more restaurant and we really wanted to create a better flow and really allow for ned working and we got a lot of very positive response. and you know, it is a celebration, and in flavors of san francisco has taken a life of its own where it is very much about the food, and the

celebration and the fun. but we really hope that it is a chance for small business owners to network and to connect with all of the small business resources that are in the city, we invite and we have probably about 20 city agency and 30 non-profit small business resources to attend, and to kind of network and we put them strategickly between the food and the alcohol so that if you want to taste all of the alcohol you actually have to walk past all of the small business resources. we are thrilled that they are hosting them in the small business awards on tuesday. and we have heard that was a fantastic event and so thank you for all of your support in insuring that continues on.

what we think is the key is the small business conference and we provide 50 different workshops this past year at sfstate downtown campus we really pushed ourselves to come up with some new topics that we had, and we worked with the san francisco economic development alliance and the chamber of commerce to do some success stories ora they are we called them failure stories to bring the panels of small business to talk about what worked and didn't and you can learn what didn't work than what did and we had great feedback >> the small business award ceremony at city club was a really fun event. we raised the level, i think a little bit from years past, and this was our second annual event and the first year was hosted by rocology in the open space and due to increased fund-raising and we were able

to take the penthouse and staoet club and mayor lee was in attendance and it was really elegant and fun night and all of the awardees and from the san francisco business alliance and the mayor's award really felt were very appreciative about the opportunity for them to be put on such a stage and shown the recognition for their hard work as a small business. we worked hard to step up the marketing donation, we were able to get, 45 bus adds throughout the city, and which is an increase over last year's 30, and we had a partnership with clear channel and we had a large number of radio ads that ran and we also built what, or designed what we called the wisdom blog and so we did the out reach and interviews with

the small business experts and owners. and really tried to spark a conversation around what takes to be a small business and provide the nuggets and the tools to continue and we got a lot of positive feedback about that. >> over all, 80 percent of those who responded, said that it was excellent or very good. and which was up from 75 and 76 percent the year prior. and 55 percent, so, who attends san francisco, small business week, 55 percent are small business owners, and another nine percent are small business employees, and the rest peg themselves as free lance or consultants and then we have about ten percent corporate employees. and 66 percent, come from san francisco, and then we have the rest come from the rest of the

bay area. and, 53 percent of the businesses who attend have been in business for three years or more which we are really happy to target the small business owners and we want the people who are in the small business community to celebrate with them and so we are happy about them. i hope that you all had a chance to attend and i am not sure if you guys have an experience that you just wanted to call out and something that you felt was very important about san francisco small business week? or that we should continue to push forward p, and any