This weekend marks the 7th annual San Francisco Green Festival, and yoga is playing a special part. Not only will there be a yoga and movement room onsite at the festival, but on Friday, November 14 at 6pm, Yoga Journal is hosting a demo and discussion panel in the East Hall. Stephanie Snyder (left) will be performing a yoga asana demonstration to encourage non-yogi greenies to start practicing, and Baxter Bell will lead a discussion on yoga as sustainable health care.

So, what's yoga got to do with greenness? Everything. As Stephanie said, when we spoke on the phone about her demo, yoga is about being mindful and aware—and so is protecting the environment. "When people start doing yoga, they just naturally start making more conscious choices," she said. "You start to take care of your body and then, naturally, to take care of the world we live in."

Want to know what your yoga studio is doing for the planet? Ask. Most studios are taking baby steps, and even bigger steps, towards being environmentally conscious. Here are a few local ones that have the planet on their minds.

* Yoga Tree studios recycle and composts everything, even those little paper drinking cups. They also uses green products in the bathroom and changing areas.

* Laughing Lotus refrains from selling bottles of water to discourage the waste of plastic.

* Yoga Garden of San Francisco runs entirely on passive solar panels, is heated with super efficient solar-to-electric fans, and was actually built with recycled materials.

* Greenpath Yoga is participating in the Green Yoga Association's Green Studio Pilot Program. Through this one-year program, the studio is making changes to incorporate more sustainable and recyclable materials into its business operation, and is also helping to author the first Green Yoga Studio Handbook.

Check out this article on greening your yoga practice, and let us know how yoga and environmental consciousness intersect in your life!