Show Notes: In our businesses-- we always strive for sustainability. From sustainable teams to earning enough revenue to pay for our employees, expenses, and investments. So why shouldn’t we also prioritize being an environmentally sustainable...
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Show Notes:
In our businesses-- we always strive for sustainability. From sustainable teams to earning enough revenue to pay for our employees, expenses, and investments. So why shouldn’t we also prioritize being an environmentally sustainable business?
For this episode, I’ve invited Anca Novacovici, the owner of the consulting company, The Eco Coach-- where she has been supporting organizations with environmental sustainability strategies for over 15 years. With her experience from working with startups to Fortune 500 companies, Anca believes that there’s definitely room for businesses to rebuild their operations with the future of the environment in mind.
So if you too want to start the transition and make the change for your business-- this episode is the perfect guide for you!
Episode Highlights and Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
02:40 Anca’s background: environment + international relations
04:53 Sustainability at the operations level
09:00 How challenges motivate change (gamification)
13:17 The IPCC Report: Seeing challenges as opportunities (competitive advantage)
18:23 Focusing on solutions: Sustainability Accelerator Example
24:02 Making a difference at home
35:37 Be a GREEN CHANGE LEADER! (Change ONE HABIT a month for a year)
Resources Mentioned:
- SustainabilityAccelerator: https://www.sustainabilityaccelerator.com/
Connect with Anca Novacovici:
- Website | The Eco Coach: http://www.eco-coach.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ancanovacovici/
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Transcript
Corinna Bellizzi
Hello, fellow do-gooders and friends. I'm your host, Corinna Bellizzi, an activist, and cause marketer. Who's passionate about social impact and sustainability. If you haven't already done. So please be sure to visit our website. Care more, be better.com. You can sign up for our newsletter to be the first to gain access to new episodes and easily browse past content.
You'll find full transcripts suggestions for actions you can take to make a difference and even make a donation to support the show today. I'm thrilled to introduce Anca Novaka of it. Now Anca, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about what you're doing and sustainability and how you serve the companies that you work with.
Anca Novacovici
Thank you so much Karena, and I'm really excited to be here. I love what you do. First of all, really quick intro. I have a sustainability consulting company. It's called eco coach based out of Washington, DC. And I've been supporting organizations with environmental sustainability for 15 plus years. And when I mentioned environmental sustainability, I know it means different things to different people.
So specifically we work with organizations on their sustainability strategy on operationalizing it, so reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, and also on the behavior change part of it, which is very near and dear to my heart. So the work that we do is, and the companies range from fortune 500 companies to, to startups.
And the work that we do is really designed to help embed environmental sustainability within the DNA of the organization at different levels, because there's so many benefits. And I'm sure if you guys are listening here, you may know some of those, there are so many benefit. To implementing environmental sustainability in a business.
And so we support organizations so that they can achieve those benefits.
Corinna Bellizzi
So what first motivated you to pursue this line
Anca Novacovici
of work? Mm, what a great question. So when I, my, I did my undergrad in international relations that had two loves the environment and international relations. And I thought, so I went to Georgetown and I pursued this school.
The international relations program and where to be a diplomat. And I realized I was not diplomatic enough. I do not have a poker face. Unfortunately, it's the truth. So I, then I started looking at, okay, how can I work with. Sustainability, how can I work with the environment? And at that point, I already had an undergrad degree in international relations.
And so I thought I need, and I thought about either doing conservation work or whether I wanted to get an advanced degree and kind of more technical, scientific stuff. And that's not that wasn't the direction that I kind of I was aligned with. And so I did a little bit more soul searching and I thought, Ooh, I would love to support organizations on their sustainability paths.
Yeah. 15 plus 20 plus years ago, I should say that didn't exist. And so what I did was I decided I was going to get an MBA, basically an international management MBA and get the experience around consulting, like basic management consulting skills. So I worked for a management consulting company for about four years, and then I went off on my own and I did some work for projects.
And then it got to the point where I couldn't not do. Because I had been studying sustainability and reading up on how I can support organizations. So I just took the leap and decided, you know what, I'm going to do this. And that's when I formed eco coach. And yeah, I haven't looked back since I feel very blessed that I'm able to do what I love.
Corinna Bellizzi
I worked at Nordic naturals during a time in which we were building a brand new LEEDcertified level gold building. So we got to tackle a lot of the questions on the, from the ground floor of, okay, we're going to go ahead and build a building that's sustainable, where you don't come in on your first day and smell that paint, smell where, you know, programmatically.
We'll turn on and off with motion detection and where most of our light will actually come from skylights and windows that are strategically positioned to ensure that during, you know, the daylight hours, you really don't have to use that much energy at all, except to, you know, fire up your computer and do the actual work that you're there to do.
So it was a really interesting process. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how. Approach businesses that weren't as fortunate as to, you know, build from the ground up a lead certified level building.
Anca Novacovici
Yeah, absolutely. So where is the work that we do is more focused on the business operation? So one of the things that we'll do is look at the organization's overall strategy and determine how we can create a sustainability strategy that is aligned with that.
Now that's for organizations. Uh, on board with starting at that level because a lot of organizations want to start with recycling or they want to just get their employees involved. So with that, we'll do either an energy challenge or a recycling challenge, or we'll look at their metrics and help them.
Improve them or help create a baseline. So it really depends on the client. So with some clients for, I'll give you an example. One of our clients for about 10 years was Goodwill industries international, and they are based out of Maryland. And they're a member-based organization. They have 160 plus organizations throughout the U S and Canada and overseas.
And what we did was we supported, I supported a steering committee of CEOs that range from about 12. Dean CEOs that it was a sustainability steering. So with that steering committee, we designed program, I designed tools. I brought in experts for webinars. I supported them with speaking and creating presentations for their internal conferences around sustainability.
Now, as you may know, Goodwill is pretty advanced to begin with in terms of sustainability. So this was really supporting them to take them to the next level. And so that's an example and another example, and this is a smaller project that we did was. For the us Senate, the architect of the Capitol, this was to help them meet their energy reduction goals.
So under the, uh, under the Obama administration, there was an executive order to reduce your, their energy consumption. And the federal governments had to reduce the, had to reduce their energy consumption. And so we helped them meet that goal through looking at. The I'm working with. Part of our team is experts who are in the built environment.
And so looking at the built environment and what they could do as well as education and how do we educate everyone in the Senate to take action, to reduce their environment, their, uh, energy consumption. So those are two examples. I'll give you an. Which is really at the very high level, and this was more involving gamification and that was a DC Washington DC wide sustainability challenge.
So there are over 440 different organizations that were involved and signed onto the challenge. And part of the challenge was, and leased and owned spaces. And there were over 240 actions that they could be taking. And so they would go in and there was an, a portal where they could take those actions.
They were, they were, they had numbers for each of those actions got points. And there was a leaders board where everyone knew who. Taking the most actions. And so there's a little bit of competition. There was gamification, we had sustainability leadership training, so it was kind of a train the trainer where we had cohorts and we had events that we put on.
So it was, it was a whole series and that was more at the city-wide level for, for DC. So again, smaller. And larger. And honestly, when I started out, I started out with a local, uh, restaurant who was very advanced in terms of the actions that they're taking busboys and poets. If anyone is in Washington, DC and is familiar with them, they're fantastic.
And at the time they had one location and I went to the owner, Andy chalal and I said, you guys are doing some great things in terms of social activism. What about the environmental part? And he was open to it and we took that on. So I've done again, we've done smaller businesses and then larger kind of citywide sustainability initiatives.
And I'll stop there for now.
Corinna Bellizzi
You're reminding me of an initiative that was undertaken while I was at Santa Clara university, getting my MBA. Uh, there was a water challenge where they were trying to reduce consumption of single use cans or bottles. Right. So you would go and get a special sticker for your bottle and you would scan it every time you refill it.
And it was a competition among many universities to see who could actually scan the most water consumed from a single bottle, as opposed to, um, reuse plastic or, or, you know, whatever it might be. And so it was a gamification and then the leading university would get a $10,000 grants or something like that.
I can't remember exactly, but again, I think it's really important when you're talking about something as big as a university campus. To engage the student populace or the employee force or whatever it is in the initiative in such a way to make it interesting and fun. And so I just, I applaud that. I think that's awesome.
Anca Novacovici
Absolutely. It's so it making it fun. I mean, if you're not making it fun, then people are less likely to take it on or to participate, right. It's oh, you're telling me to do something or, oh, it's all doom and gloom. Positive messaging works so much. At least in my
Corinna Bellizzi
experience. I totally agree. So let's talk about some of the doom and gloom from the recently,
you know, sadly, but we do have to talk about the real issues of climate change too. So recently the IPC published their report, which is somewhat damning on climate change and. Basically said there's an unequivocal connection between the things that we are doing and its impact on climate, um, which will hopefully start to change policy and a variety of countries around the world where perhaps we haven't been spending as much time, energy effort.
Funding projects that need funding and ultimately really working to reduce the impact of bad actors. Because if we don't reduce the impact of those bad actors, you know, all the small little changes we make in our daily lives to refill that water bottle and, uh, you know, maybe save our water and from the shower and what are our gardens are not going to have the kind of impact that's needed in order to stay.
You know, the really kind of ravaging storms that will be our future if we don't make some real lasting changes. So I wonder if you have initial thoughts, um, on that IPC report and how businesses should take the news that they've received and also consider.
Anca Novacovici
Great question and yes, I have a lot of thoughts.
I'll share a couple, like we need to get into action now is really, yesterday is more like it,
Corinna Bellizzi
right?
Anca Novacovici
Yeah. Years ago. So a few thoughts, one, the way that I would position it for businesses, because unfortunately, Many businesses look at these types of reports and say, well, I don't know if it really, if it's gonna affect me or not.
And so the conversation and the conversation that I've started having with some of my clients too, is this is a risk management or risk mitigation approach that you have to take. There will bleak climate event. There will be flooding or massive torrential rains, depending on where you are increased hurricanes, just increased climate events in general, those are going to disrupt business.
What do you need to think about and put in place now to address? The other thing is with, with this is operational efficiencies. The more efficient that your business is not only does that help you with your bottom line with cutting costs, but it also does help with this, with the risk mitigation. And so.
Uh, in terms of thoughts of creating action it's to me, I am bringing up and have been bringing it up with my clients and I've had, since the report came out, On August 8th, I believe I brought it up to a couple of clients and here's, and have brought it into discussion in terms of where, and I, I didn't bring it into as a, as a doom and gloom.
I brought it as like, here's an opportunity. It's an opportunity for you to take action. Now it's an opportunity for you to be a leader and to really lead if your industry is not doing it. It doesn't matter. You can be a leader, you can have a competitive advantage and then going into why sustainability is a competitive advantage.
So to me, yes, there is absolutely, it is, uh, not happy news, let's say. And I try to look at it from a opportunity, right? This is a challenge. This is an opportunity for your business. What do you need to do? To take advantage of this opportunity.
Corinna Bellizzi
Yeah. Right. I mean, I completely agree that repositioning it, reframing it as an opportunity is really helpful.
I do also think that we need to really consider what that means like in here in California. PG and E is shutting down people's power when winds are high and winds are high more and more frequently because of the fact that we have these climate events occurring. So if PGNE shuts off your power and you have a business that relies on power to run, which is almost all of them, what kinds of mitigation pieces can you put in place will you would essentially need to move off the grid?
Or have enough generators that are using, you know, natural gas or something else to power your business, at least at a functional level. So you can keep rolling. And that's what we've had to do here. We already have solar panels, but we aren't off the grid. We're feeding up the line. Well, when PGNE shuts off.
Our power goes away too. So I have a propane, natural gas generator that I have to crank in the background, which I'm not super thrilled with, but it enables me to keep working. And so I, I really think that, you know, we need to think about. Ways to tackle these, these things creatively and figure out new solutions that we might not have thought about before.
Um, I interviewed David Johnson, who is a, uh, professor from Stanford earlier this week for my podcast. That episode will likely air just before this one does. And he mentioned to me, um, a proposal that he's seen that is being, uh, Well, it's being supported by Michael Bloomberg and some other really big names to melt permafrost in Greenland to mind for the minerals that are needed in order to create car batteries.
And so even in the face of things like this IPC report, you know, we need to be putting mother earth. As the center of conversations about what we're doing to harness resources around the globe that are, especially when they are supposed to be a better alternatives to fossil fuels. Right? So if this is a better alternative to fossil fuels, getting these, uh, you know, needed components of batteries, at least as they're presently constructed.
Does it really make sense to melt permafrost and introduce whatever. You know, maybe there's pathogens within that, that we haven't seen in our lifetimes because it's been frozen for the entirety of human existence. I mean, we really don't know what the unintended consequences are going to be. And so I think that we need to keep our thinking caps on about creative solutions that keep mother earth at central frame.
And if we can do that, we can come up with new ideas that will help to support and change, and ultimately ensure that. Our future generations have a survivable environment. And that's really, I think the point that we need to be thinking about as we look at this IPC report, like is longterm building a survivable environment, supporting mother earth.
And if were to turn this on its head and say, I want to look at this as an opportunity as an opportunity to really think about our environment and how we interact with. And the things that we will do to ensure a long time long-term success of our ecosystem.
Anca Novacovici
Yeah. And one of the things that I think is really important too, to your point is that the planet is one of the stakeholders that needs to be considered.
And comms is at that table is at that imaginary table as a company that is one of your stakeholders. You need to be taking that into account and taking those actions for that stakeholder for the good of all of your stakeholders. Because if not, Your business will suffer, suffer in the longterm.
Corinna Bellizzi
Yeah, I mean completely.
So let's get to talking about solutions, like things that can get people engaged and excited. Um, a while back you launched a sustainability accelerator designed for businesses, but quickly realized that you needed to put something out there that was geared more closely to the lower ranks of employees.
Something more gamified. Right. So who also really want to, you know, build a more sustainable workplace. So tell us about the program you developed with them in mind and how we might leverage that.
Anca Novacovici
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that question. So the sustainability accelerator, it was a online program that was designed to replace me and other consultants and to make it affordable for businesses to become environment.
Stainable without having a full-time consultant on, on staff basically, or hiring a full-time consultant. And like you said, I did put that on hold because I think I kept thinking, how do I create change faster? And one of the questions that I got. So many people is how do I implement this in my organization?
I am at whatever level, right. I may be in marketing. I may be in PR. I may be in accounting. I may be in HR, but I'm not, I don't have the budget. I'm not the manager. So how do I get started? How do I do it? And so I created a online program, which is called the green change leaders Quickstart, and it is supposed to push essentially, get you.
Started right as the name suggests and the idea behind it is it's a set of four modules. It deals with mindset. It gives you tools on how to get started, and it's supposed to be something that is affordable that you can take action on. And the, uh, we've had over 1600 individuals right now go through the program.
I would love to see a hundred thousand go through so that within a hundred to a hundred thousand different organizations in different parts of the world, people are taking action. Right. And, uh, and people are doing it on their own. They're growing their sustainability and, and green consulting. So to speak skills internally, and they're growing their leadership and their change leadership skills as I call them because they are change agents and they can also link up with other people within those organizations and grow and grow momentum for sustainability.
That's the idea behind the program and, uh, we're, uh, we're, I'm really excited about it. It's gotten some great initial feedback and I want to back to the IPC report, I want to be able to support organizations and individuals in creating change as quickly as possible, because we need to create change as quickly as possible positive change.
Right? So.
Corinna Bellizzi
I mean, there are some real simple ways that we can create more positive change. And one of them is to drive. Live closer to where you work. If you don't work from home. I mean, all of those things have a real significant impact on our personal carbon footprints, but you mentioned something that I think is really important.
You might have people that are working in any number of, uh, departments within a company that wants to help make change. And the company may not have allocated enough resources to really put a sizable program into place because sometimes some of these sustainable. Issues, um, initiatives can cost some money to integrate.
Uh, so one of the things that businesses often look at is what are the dollars and cents and how does it come down to supporting my longterm goals? And I know that I've talked about this in, um, business dealings myself, but you can measure the viability of a sustainability program. Often from the savings that you're going to initiate from shifting your power consumption and things along those lines.
So, uh, do you have like a simple calculator or something like that, that you are putting together or have put together for businesses to help build those budgets?
Anca Novacovici
I do. And I actually have it on my website on the blog. There is an ROI calculator, a simple one that people can access to, to do that sort of calculation.
And you could go to the eco-coach.com blog and search ROI, and you should be able to, should pop up. It should be the first thing popping up. And to your point, one of the steps that I recommend starting with is energy because with energy conservation, you can quantify it. And so if you can quantify it, you can actually make the business case for it.
If you make the business case for it, you're more likely to get the CFO on board or others in management, and then you can get a budget for other projects. So with energy, somethings that I think are pretty simple, that you can do that don't require a big budget. One of the things that I mentioned often is an energy challenge.
It seems really simple, but you can get the information, even if your building is leased, you can get that. Typically you should be able to get the information of how much energy is being used from your facilities manager. And there are some areas, some utilities that offer the green button, which gives you even up to every 15.
Uh, intervals energy usage. And so if you do an energy challenge for two weeks where different departments are competing against each other and turning off the lights and turning off their computer at the end of the day, turning off equipment and see. How low you can decrease how much you can decrease your energy use, uh, and make it fun.
Then you can also tie that to dollars. So you have the kilowatt hours, you're going to likely have an average cost per kilowatt hour. And then you can look at the making the business case for it. That's just one simple example. Yeah. So let's
Corinna Bellizzi
talk about more, more of that low-hanging fruit. What can people do as individuals in their homes and at work to lessen the impact and live a little greener?
Anca Novacovici
Lots of things let's let's so I I'll give you some idea she is, but I also will preface it with, I know that everyone here who's listening is probably on this journey, I'm assuming. And is it different parts of this journey? So there may be things here that you hear and that you're already doing, and if that's the case and you may looking at be really advanced and you'd be looking at this and well, I've done all of these things.
Great. What is the next thing you can do? Because there always is a next thing. It's an iterative process. You're never going to be done with it. Right. So I'll give you an example. I know that's not, it's positive and negative, but it's the reality, right? I mean, you can, you can go zero waste at home and then realize, well, I have, I don't know, I've been buying all this fast fashion and yes, I'm through, I'm dropping it off at a donation bin and that's quote unquote, part of my zero waste, but it's still fast fashion.
Right. So then you start thinking, okay, how do I. Uh, look at my clothing. So some examples at home of things that you could do is, and this is a broad category, but look at your plastic consumption. From the, are you using plastic bags when you're going to the store? I know a lot of areas don't will charge for that.
Are you buying shampoo? Are you buying shampoo bars and full disclosure? I have. Blue bars and we're transitioning to those. And that was, that's a recent thing. Even looking at your toothbrushes, there's a plastic toothbrushes, a bamboo. And I know with all of these, there are further discussions that we could have as to, okay.
What's the best. And is bamboo the best or is there another renewable resource, but really what I would suggest is think about. What's an alternative that encompasses renewable energy and, or renewable resources, not renewable energy, but renewable resources. So how much, how long are your showers? How much are you?
Are you using the dishwasher or are you washing the dishes and how much are you running the water when you're washing it? Or when you're brushing your teeth, those things with in terms of human health, there's also looking at all of your personal care products, your household cleaning products, and replacing all of those, your cosmetics, uh, environmental working group.org, ewg.org is a fantastic site.
If you're not familiar with it, that will rate the different products. So think about your. Health, they will look at your cosmetics. You can enter information about a specific brand and then you get a rating. You can enter information about if you're using Mrs. Meyers or if you're using method, dish soap, let's say for example, or Ecover or some generation, those are all rated as well as let's say the pine Saul's of the world.
So you, you can choose something that's healthier. So those are some examples at home at work. And I mentioned fast fashion. Right? How, what are you buying? And are you buying on impulse or are you really being conscious and conscientious of what you're buying and what's coming into your home at work? You can start by using less paper or not using paper at all by turning off your computers by educating others.
So maybe having some presentations take earth day as a, as a starting point. This is a great opportunity. All companies or most companies have a presentation or something. So you can influence that. Try to get a team together and get other people on board. I bet you in most organizations, unless it's just you, unless it's just you and your dog.
Right. And then you're the one who's really excited about it. In most organizations, there are people, there are other people who are going to be excited about this and who are going to want to contribute and who are excited. I would also ask for feedback from others. If you can get it, if there's a suggestion box, if you can get someone in HR to have an event around maybe a recycling day or a volunteer.
Tree planting day. I mean, I'm throwing again with tree planting. You have to be really conscious of it or what company and where you plant and what have you, but I'm throwing out ideas of things that you can do. So there's always something that you can do. Part of it is whether in your personal life or at work is how you show up.
And so you being conscious, your actions will be noted by others. By your friends by your community, by your colleagues, your coworkers. So if you're bringing in a reasonable mug every day, if you have a reusable water bottle and you don't use anything there, and then you say, Hey, these would be great alternatives.
If we put the company logo on here, this would be a great marketing tool. So providing those ideas, getting creative back to what you said earlier. Having creative solutions and only, you know, your organization and your yourself and your family, but it's an opportunity. People are going to look to you.
That is one of the things that I noticed, even with my friends. When I, I started, I was going to my friend's house and asking like, where's the recycling? Where can I recycle this? A lot of my friends ended up getting recycled and this is years back, they ended up getting recycling bins. I didn't really know that we could recycle things and you kept asking us.
So I was just like, but just because I kept on pestering them or I would tell them, Hey, here's a healthier alternative for you with your personal care products or do you know, there's this really cool water bottle that you could use instead of all this plastic. And you know that this plastic goes into your system.
Stays there. And then it also goes into the waterways and the oceans. And so I tell the story and I think some of my friends got, I got kind of tired of hearing all of these stories, but really it's, uh, it's sharing your stories and sharing your passion and it does create change. So you lead by example, wherever you are with every action that you take.
Corinna Bellizzi
No. Sometimes people will choose to collaborate with somebody when they're going through a diet or a lifestyle change. Like, oh, well, I'm going to start going to the gym. So I need you to be my accountability partner. They could do the same thing with regard to sustainability and almost kind of create their own little gamified.
Hey, I'm going to share ideas with you and we'll keep each other accountable and really kind of just use it as a way to bond more. I think that is a good way to go about it as well. So I love the ideas I will add to the list. I always feel like I can add to the list, but one is, if you can shop for used clothing, then even if it is fast fashion, you're giving it a second life.
Another is that you can compost. It's not that hard. And even if you live in an apartment in New York city, there are composting services, you can just freeze it and you can supply them with that compost. So, you know, you talked about some really great organic restaurant and. You know, Washington DC.
Sometimes those restaurants will even have composting programs. So if you have a favorite restaurant that you go to and you consume organic, they might actually have their own little herb garden where they're using compost for that herb garden. So, you know, you can get creative, get involved and actually use it to forge new relationships with people that will count to you and your community.
Anca Novacovici
Absolutely. Yeah, and it makes it fun. It does makes it a lot more fun and you get to know other people. If you're sharing stuff there, you may need, let's say a lawn mower and you don't use it all the time. Well, the sharing economy is another great example of that. You can share with your neighbors and then that's an opportunity for getting to know them better.
Yeah,
Corinna Bellizzi
no, that's true. You know, I, um, have I use running shoes and I'm disappointed by the fact that they only tend to last about six months. Right. But the reality is I'm able to capture them and take them to my local running store and throw them in the bin and they get recycled into high school and college field tracks.
So that they're actually used for running services. For those schools. So they're novel uses and novel ways to recycle and reuse and reduce your consumption overall, uh, along the way. So I encourage people to check those things out. I will also say, you know, Amazon has made our lives easier in some ways, but the reality is the carbon footprint of every box that you receive in the mail and the trucking of it and everything else.
Necessarily beautiful. Earlier this week, I took my six-year-old, um, on a journey to a local antique shop and secondhand store and said, okay, well, you said you wanted a toy, but I'm not buying plastic new. So let's just see what they have. We came home with three Nerf guns. I spent $6. So not only was it a cost saving.
We're giving a second life to these Nerf guns and he's super thrilled. It doesn't matter that it was used. They work perfectly well, and he's going to have a lot of fun with them. So I think there are just ways that we can look to our community, make excursions for our kids, build it into something special, as opposed to making it seem like it's something that is just, oh, well you didn't buy it.
New mom, like, look at what you did. Like, no, we're on a treasure hunt. We're going to find something.
Anca Novacovici
Yeah, I think that's, that is the, it's a really important point to highlight is making it fun. And for kids, once they learn that this is an alternative, that this is a fun way of doing it, then they start looking at this as the go-to, as opposed to the dollar store or whatever it is that was going to sell you.
Plastic toy. Right,
Corinna Bellizzi
right. That was made where and shipped from where, and it's just kicking the can down the road because we didn't see the pollution directly here. Well, probably China, you know? So, um, wow. No, I think these are all it's food for thought. Keep us thinking and keep us just really down to earth about what we can do individually to help lead a little bit of a greener lifestyle.
Now I like to ask a question as I prepared a rap, every interview. And that is, if there's a question I haven't asked that you wish I had, what would it be? And if you don't have one of those, if there's just a closing thought that you'd like to leave our audience with something that you'd like for them to carry with them as they continue on in their day.
Anca Novacovici
The, I think it's a closing thought, which is which I alluded to earlier and which is to encourage everyone to look at themselves as making a difference. And being a leader because I really I've had conversations with people saying, oh, I'm just 22. I'm not really a leader. Can't really do much. And I laugh at that and say, you have an amazing voice.
You have an amazing perspective and a huge opportunity to share that, especially nowadays with social media, the way it is. And so don't. Be intimidated. Don't let that mindset stop. You get past it, figure out how you can get past it so that you can take action and think about what's the one action that I'm going to take in the next day to 30 days.
What's one habit that I'm going to change to support the planet, look around your house. Or look around your workplace. What's one thing you can do, do that every month for the next 12 months, change one habit a month and see where it gets.
Corinna Bellizzi
Well, I love that idea. One habit a month for me, the big one when COVID hit was I stopped going out for coffee because they just aren't doing reusable mugs and they aren't doing service for here.
And I couldn't deal with the plastic and paper waste. Every time I went for a cup of coffee, I'm looking forward to getting back to that though. I love meeting friends for a good cup of Joe.
Anca Novacovici
You too,
Corinna Bellizzi
me too. Wow. Well, Anka, thank you so much for your time today. This has been a really fun discussion and I'm just so glad to be connected.
Now I know we're on clubhouse together, so I'm likely to ask you to go ahead and host a room or two with me, and hopefully we can engage this community a little bit more and they can ask you questions and learn more about what you do with eco coach as well. So we can kind of keep that change moving forward.
Anca Novacovici
I would love that. And thank you so much for the opportunity. It's been so much fun, I think. And I love that we're aligned on so many of these things, and I hope that this provides your audience with additional ideas and with additional inspiration that they can take action and that they can, they can really do it.
Yeah. And not to wait.
Corinna Bellizzi
That's right now. Tell us again how to find you I'll include all of that and show notes as well, but just as we're wrapping up, right.
Anca Novacovici
Sure so you can find, so my company's name is eco coach and it's eco-coach.com. Or if you want to find out more about the green change leader, quick start, you can go to sustainability accelerator.com and it's one of the programs there.
You're going to see the sustainability accelerator. There's a wait list for that. For the next time we open, then the green change leaders, quick start, and then a membership, a green leaders, inner circle membership, which. Is the next step after the green change leaders, quick start to provide.
Corinna Bellizzi
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much. Anca that's beautiful. Thank you. Now listeners, I'd like to invite you to act. It doesn't have to be huge. It doesn't have to feel like a Herculean effort. You're not climbing Mount Everest here. You're putting one foot in front of the other. It could be as simple as sharing this podcast with some friends that you think could benefit from the conversation.
It could also be as simple as just making that one change that Anca talked about each month to do something a little differently, to have a lesser impact and live a little greener every day. You can always go to care more, be better.com for ideas like this and resources. There's an action page there of businesses that we encourage you to support that are really, you know, they're living the way that we want to be living.
I invite all of you to join the conversation. You can be a part of the community we're building by simply going to the site and joining our newsletter. You can even find us on clubhouse, Instagram, et cetera. You can even send me an email directly@helloatcaremorebebetter.com. Thank you listeners now, and always for being a part of this pot and this community, because together we really can do so much more.
We can care more and we can be better.