Green Expo Encourages Small Changes for Clean Living

Environmentally friendly trade shows often feature the latest in electric cars or a cutting edge approach to home heating.

While there's no doubt investing in one of those will help reduce your carbon footprint, Vienna's Green Expo encourages a simpler approach to saving the earth.

Such approaches include making basic changes, like riding your bike instead of driving.

"We're here to talk to people about how they can easily use bicycles for transportation, to get around for short trips, to go to work, to go to the shop," says Bruce Wright, with the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.

But the Vienna Green Expo featured more than just tips on bicycling. It showcased everything from the local farmers market to home energy companies.

One of the attendants, Angie Kiochandra, browsed the expo with her children and even found a new cause to support through her power company.

"You can sign up each month to donate money towards renewable energy and it's inexpensive," she says. "So that's probably something we'll do so we can lose the guilt factor."

The town of Vienna has just launched a Watt Watchers program that allows people to rent whole home and appliance monitors and check their home energy use directly.