Learn From a Green-Living Guru

Those new to the green scene who are in need of savvy advice have someone to turn to: Anca Novacovici, a District-based consultant who draws up planet-friendly strategies for residents and businesses nationwide via her company, Eco-Coach ( http://www.eco-coach.com, 571-275-7700).

Novacovici, 33, says she shapes the most environmentally challenged into conservation champions. Her goals? To prevent harm to the environment, of course, but also to drill her clients in personal empowerment. Replacing one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent, for instance, will keep a half-ton of carbon dioxide -- a major contributor to global warming -- out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb.

"Even though it's easy to say [climate change is] coming up so quickly on us, a little step by everyone is what's going to make a big difference," she says.

Eco-Coach was created in February 2006, when Novacovici, then an independent management consultant, started teaching green-living workshops part time. Novacovici wanted to apply her environmental passion -- instilled while growing up as a tomboy on her grandmother's farm in Romania -- to her work.

That year's spate of natural disasters, Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and a surge in environmental consciousness allowed Novacovici to go full time in October 2006. She charges $200 to $300 for an audit, depending on the size of the home.

Before a coaching visit, Novacovici asks her clients to think about their motivation. Is it cutting energy costs or their carbon footprint? She then tours their home and evaluates, room by room, how to meet those objectives. Afterward, she draws up an "eco-audit," a list of needed changes with a note about their degrees of difficulty. The clients check back with Novacovici at regular intervals or whenever they need further coaching.

Betsy Singer recruited Novacovici in July to lower energy costs and reduce toxic chemicals in her three-bedroom Columbia home. Singer had adopted some green habits, but she wanted "an expert opinion on what I was already doing and ideas for the future," she says. Under Novacovici's tutelage, Singer bought a programmable thermostat, installed Energy Star appliances and unplugged devices when not in use -- actions that have kept her energy bill down, she says.

Novacovici practices what she preaches. She zips around town in Zeus, her nickname for her sky blue 2005 Toyota Prius, and instead of a coach's whistle, she wears a Q-Link pendant around her neck that is supposed to help deflect potentially harmful electromagnetic fields. She even sweats out D.C. summers without air conditioning.

But this conservation pro is the first to admit that becoming green isn't easy. "You can get info overload and [say], 'Everything I'm doing is wrong,' " Novacovici says. "It's figuring out things within your reach that you can do."

Start with the painless first, she advises: Switch to reusable cups and silverware at work, or install water-saving filters on your shower head. Before long, you'll be scoring points for the home team -- Mother Earth, that is.

-- Christine Dell'Amore