I believe that most people honestly want to do the right things in life. It’s rare that someone really wants to create havoc and destruction upon our world. We all want to be on the winning team and feel good about the choices we make and the impact we have on others around us.

Recently, I’ve been working with a company called “Going Green Today“.  They provide a tremendous website on how people can make simple and easy adjustments in their life to help others and the environment around them, all while saving themselves a lot of their hard earned money.

Being a realist, I know that many people don’t have the time and proper information to even know where to start when going green in their life.

They think it’s hard and expensive. The truth is actually quite the opposite. So, I sat down and asked the owner Scott Ankeny to elaborate on how people can really make a difference in the world without sacrificing a ton of time and money. Here was his answers to my straight forward questions…

1. Jason: Many people I know want to do what they can to help the environment and do their part, but they don’t want to spend a lot of money or exert any more time and effort since their time is already limited. What do these busy people do to go green?

Scott: This program is actually designed for busy people….some years back I was writing a column titled “Walking Lightly”. I received tons of fan mail from working mothers, single parents, fathers with 3 kids and 2 jobs, busy professionals with outrageous mortgages, who all wanted to be more eco conscious but were so busy ,staying afloat that they were stressed by the idea of trying to fit “green” into their lives.

When I wrote I kept to the facts, I only wrote about actions that would make a substantial impact on the environment, save immediate money from our costs of living and could be done quickly and simply…this is the foundation that I built Going Green Today on top of.

So…your answer is yes and no….this shift we have to make requires some extra attention and effort The good news is alot of what we will ask you to do together is about creating systems upfront (many actions will take less then 30 minutes) so that being green into the future, will take ZERO extra effort.

And in fact, some of the things we ask you to do, will take no extra time….many of these tasks have you doing the same stuff you are already doing, just going about it a little differently

2. Jason: Let’s face it, people are very conscious of their budget right now and many are pinching pennies with the current economic climate. How cost efficient is Going Green in someone’s life?

No…, if you desire you will spend $0 extra dollars Going Green Today. As you answer the assessment questions, we will be looking at 4 areas of spending. The areas and actions that you can do for no $, then we will look for areas that you are already spending money on (such
as grocery shopping) we call this “no extra cost”- I am sure you can save quite alot of money from this area of reducing your current cost of living., the other 2 areas are the ones you can spend money on, if you choose, anything we recommend we will give you the pro’s and con’s on a financial aspect.

We break spending actions into 2 areas, small purchases and big purchases. Small purchases are between $5 and $50, such as caulk to seal up air leaks, an early closure flap for your toilet, a water filter, a more efficient shower head…etc.

But we will show you how much you will save for each action…so if you don’t see the benefit, move on to the next action.

The same thing holds for the bigger Purchases, you could spend few hundred on a new more efficient appliance but will save 2 or 3 x’s that amount over a few years…these are really for homeowners and those who want to do long terms investments such as solar power water heaters or roof panels and get tens of thousands in savings over 20 years.

3. Jason:  Is it a hassle & labor intensive to Go Green?

Scott: To me, this is sort of a trick question and one that makes me smile. We are all so stuck in our ways that the idea of creating a new habit can bring up fear.

Look, this HAS to happen, we have to learn how to be lighter on the Earth…period…even if you don’t believe in Climate Change, just the shear environmental impact of our cultural way of doing things can be devastating for generations to come…just look at the gulf of Mexico…devastating and can be avoided in the future by just doing your part in making some simple changes that while different will not drastically alter your lifestyle.

So, to be more direct to the answer…some days it will be 5 minutes reading an article so that you are informed., other days 10 minutes cleaning your fridge coils and on the biggest days, an hour or two, at most on the higher level Green tasks( these are rare).

But truly, this is not forever and with our program and the green road map we personalize for you, there will be a start and a finishing end point This is why we do this for 90 days,
We can spread it all out and making it less intensive on a daily basis…working smarter not harder so that once you’re done, you’re done.

You will have done all the really big and effective greening you will need to do. That is the true beauty of Going Green Today, the structured start and finish, designed to hit the goals you choose so that doing you part is simple and can be accomplished in a short amount of time.

Let me leave you with this:

Choose one of the two options….

If you could do something in your life that took 10 minutes, saving you $50 from your cost of living and reduced your footprint by 400 pounds of co2.

Or

Do something in your life that took 30 minutes, left things about the same, saved you $15 from your cost of living and barely impacted your Carbon Footprint…

Which one would you choose?

Right, easy answer….well, this is what we do for you, we have you answer a series of super quick questions, we analyze hundreds of green actions and projects you could do. Then we create a personalized green “road map” so that you will have the whole greening process laid out for you, saving you time, money and much effort.

You can check out Going Green Today and get a Free Assessment on how you can help the planet and your wallet by clicking here.