Ecopreneurist

Take two professional women who are busy raising their families, a growing concern about the environment, and the need for a flexible business, and what do you get? Well, if you are Catherine Flanagan and Jane Holt, you launch a home energy auditing business called Green Homes.

Catherine, a lawyer, sought out a more flexible career after the birth of her fourth child. The she and her husband added an addition to her house, and she began to realize the impact that she could have helping others to make their homes as green as possible. “It was also important that we do something meaningful and challenging,” she said.

Living outside of the US for a while helped raise Jane’s awareness of the need to become more environmentally friendly. Jane has always hated waste, but while living in Mexico, Jane wrote a freelance story about garbage that really opened her eyes to how wasteful the American lifestyle can be. “As things became more Americanized, the amount of garbage became colossal,” she said.

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Making the change from more structured careers (Jane worked in marketing at Starbucks for many years) to Green Homes not only allows these friends and co-business owners the opportunity to work in a field they find very meaningful, it also gives them the work-life balance they need. Jane and Catherine can schedule home visits while their kids are in school, and catch up on paperwork at home at night. They provide very detailed reports for each client, but it’s a labor of love. “We are both research geeks,” said Catherine. “We love the research part,” she added.

Jane and Catherine are self-taught eco-auditors. Though they initially considered going for formal certification, they decided instead to research home energy efficiency thoroughly, but approach their audits broadly. They not only measure heat loss, cooling, air flow, and lighting usage in a home, but they also evaluate private car versus public transportation usage, consumption of organic and bulk foods, and even what parents pack in their kids’ lunches. “What sets us apart is more of a holistic approach [to home energy audits],” said Jane.

For more general information about home energy audits, read this post by Amy Stodghill: Daily Tip: Get a Home Energy Audit.

Readers: Do you know of other green women business owners? I would like to cover this topic in more depth, so please e-mail me with suggestions.

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