Sustain SU begins our Green For Good Market vendor intake as early as late-June/early-July each year! The first part of this is of course creation of our Vendor intake form. Potential vendors fill out this form with tons of relevant information such as: 

• Vendor personal information (billing address, email address)
• If they identify themselves as Indigenous or as a UAlberta student (so we can offer discounts!)
• Links to their website or instagram so we can view their products
• Information about their products (what do they want to sell?)
• Pricing information (we are always conscientious of the cost to our students!)

And perhaps most importantly, we ask them to talk about their business and products from a sustainable perspective:

• Are their products environmentally friendly?
• Do they make/bake/grow their own products? (as opposed to Temu or Alibaba resellers)
• How does their business support the various aspects of sustainability?
• Where do they source their products/ingredients?
• How does their business support social sustainability?
• How do they support economic sustainability? 

Finally we ask our vendors which of the 8 markets they would like to apply to sell at. 

Once this form is completed our fabulous student staff spends countless hours scrolling Instagram (it’s tough for them) looking for vendors located in the greater Edmonton area and DMing them to talk about our market, encouraging them to apply and providing the application link. 

After around a month or so the Sustain SU staff and Volunteer team sits down and carefully reviews each and every application and creates a short list of possible vendors. This shortlist takes into consideration important points such as:

• Number of vendors who sell related items 
• Cost to the student (if we have two vendors selling similar items, which one sells for a better cost to the student?)
• We go through their instagram and confirm that their items are sustainable
• Relevance to students (our Volunteers and Student Staff ask themselves “Would I buy this?”) 
• Dates that vendor applied to. We only have so many spots at each market and only 8 markets each year. With this in mind, we need to ensure that any given market isnt overloaded with vendors selling the same item so that each and every market feels like a new experience for our students. To that end, we try to ensure a fresh set of vendors each market while maintaining a few crowd favourites.

Finally, having created a shortlist of vendors for each date, our team sits down for fun, friendly, but serious discussion on each market date in order to come up with our top 20ish vendors for each market. When this is done, the team sends personalized emails to each vendor formally inviting them to the selected dates, including an invoice for a modest tabling fee and an extensive manual with all the market rules and regulations for our Market!

So when you come and check out the Green for Good Market this month, know that each vendor you see was carefully selected by student staff and volunteers to help you shop for fun and useful things sustainably. Don't forget to bring your own bag!