It’s Saturday night in San Francisco and the line outside Temple nightclub wraps well beyond the velvet rope and ominous looking bouncers. Inside, DJ’s in three rooms bump house beats as the whole 1000 person venue pulsates. While this all looks normal to the average clubber, this place is the catalyst to "greening" the nightclub industry.

Paul Hemming shows me his notebook from 2004. Sustainable clubbing, eco friendly restaurant, vertical gardens, building spiritual consciousness through music, the list goes on. Four years later, the list is surprisingly fulfilled, a lot of his vision as the owner has come to fruition.

“We started with consumables, the no brainers,” explains Mike Zuckerman, Director of Sustainability for Temple. “Compostable cups, straws, all corn starch based. We recycle our bottles and we compost our food. The easiest things to implement are the ones with immediate financial returns. We get rebates and receive credits on our waste bills by keeping up good recycling and composting practices”. “We try to take the decision out of the partiers hands when they get to the venue so all they need to think about is having a good time,” says Mike.

Because it’s a large club where people gather, a nightclub is a logical place to make an impact on consumable products. But Temple delves deeper: Cleaning products are non-toxic, food is organic whenever possible, and the lights are efficient, all of which lessen Temple's footprint on the environment. “There’s a lot of openness from people trying to do the same things as us in other cities,” Paul adds. “There are clubs putting similar practices into effect in New York, Rotterdam and Chicago. You can even see the impact inside in the office here. Everybody that works here has a real positive sense of possibility--it goes beyond our love of nightlife and music.”

What is most impressive about Temple is their unique approach to sustainability. While a new solar panel system and other well-known eco-friendly practices are on the agenda, there are also some unique ideas that can serve as inspiration for other venues as well. For example, the carpeting is cut in one foot-squared, interconnecting pieces, so stains and wear don’t require full replacement. “We’re trying a lot of experimental ideas. Some work and some don’t.” explained Mike. “A few months ago, we started thinking about all the car flyering that went on in the neighborhood while people were in our club and the trash it caused in the neighborhood. I picked up all of the club flyers on our block, then recycled them as drink tickets and Green passes to get into the club. It’s not something we’ve run with completely, but I owe Paul a lot for letting me run with new ideas. Hopefully we’ll be able to come up with a few new concepts that can be adopted by other clubs around the country, that’s the ultimate goal.”

Temple Nightclub is located at 540 Howard St. in San Francisco . For more info about the nightclub’s green practices, restaurant and party scene, check out their site at http://www.templesf.com.