San Francisco’s Mega-Conference Dreamforce Bans Beef 

From November 19 to November 22, more than 170,000 attendees are expected to descend upon San Francisco for Dreamforce, a massive conference for customers, partners, employees, and key stakeholders  of software company Salesforce. For the first time, the conference will not be serving beef—a move that will save 9 million gallons of water—in a bid to expand its sustainability efforts. The conference will also not offer plastic straws, use fully compostable utensils and packaging, provide reusable water bottles, and donate leftover food to nonprofit Food Runners for redistribution to those in need. “Climate change is happening. It’s here,” Suzanne DiBianca, Salesforce chief impact officer, told the SF Chronicle. “We have got to go fast. We have to change how we deliver Dreamforce. We have to change our operations. We have to use Dreamforce as a platform to educate people on how they can get involved.” This year’s Dreamforce conference will welcome an impressive lineup of speakers, including former US President Barack Obama, World Cup Champion Megan Rapinoe, Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke, and Apple CEO Tim Cook. The San Francisco Bay Area is increasingly taking climate action, including San Francisco-based coworking chain WeWork which stopped allowing employees to expense meat-based meals last year. Earlier this week, celebrated chef Dominique Crenn—the first woman in the United States to be awarded the top honor of three Michelin stars who will also be speaking at Dreamforce this year—announced that all of her San Francisco restaurants are officially “meat-free” (in her interpretation, meat excludes seafood) as she moves toward focusing her dishes on vegetables.