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Going Greener, a year long quest. (Look out Ed Begley Jr.)

This week I completed the first portion of my GREEN Designation Course for REALTORS. And it has made me think. Where do I fall on the “Greenie” spectrum, and can I do more. I think I am like most other people,  I am neither a “True Believer” nor a “Skeptic”, nor am I eco-chic (unless I find something cool and GREEN at TJ Maxx). I am somewhere in the middle – a “lifestyle” environmentalist.

As a person, I think green in good. As a home owner, I think an energy efficienct home is good. As a mom, I think Sustainability is good. And, I thought I was contributing a decent amount to the green movement. I recycle a lot, I use reusable shopping bags religiously, I only give my children Organic Milk and I shop locally and organically whenever possible.

But, I don’t or didn’t ever stop to really look around my home and examine how green it is.

After two intense days under Mimi Weisinger’s “tutelage” my eyes are open (wider) and I want to do better. Following in the footsteps of the start of the green movement in commerical real estate. I am focusing on the bottom line and over the next 52 weeks vow to make my home more energy efficient and more GREEN.

I live in a 1920’s colonial in Maplewood NJ. So it’s not like I can start from scratch, say by finding a brownfield, remediating the contamination and building a LEED home. No, my steps will have to be more home specific to my existing home and more calculated to fit within our budget.

My husband and I have already done two things to improve our homes “Greeness”. 1.) We have had professionals removed as much of the lead paint from the exterior as possible and repainted it ironically enough green (neither for the movement, nor for our beloved Philadelphia E-A-G-L-E-S, as some of our family and friends may think), 2.) We have replaced all 27 of our old, single-pane windows on the first and second floors with thermal pane/low E windows – which have the added benefit of opening and closing. Yay for us!

So, what’s next. Each week I will set a goal for myself. Our road map of baby steps in moving towards a greener home. This week’s goal will be to evaluate what needs to be done, what we can afford to do and then create a priority list for the next 52 weeks. 365 days from now our Maplewood Home will be greener. Look out Ed Begley Jr. my carbon footprint is getting smaller too!

Feel free to email me with your ideas and wish us luck.

Tracy Freeman

Buyer Specialist, Sue Adler Team

eMail: TracyFreemanRealtor@gmail.com

Mobile: 917.604.5735

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 5:04 am and is filed under Communities, GREEN Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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