Don’t be a jerk. It’s one thing to have good eco-friendly intentions, but when you start bawling out your friends for leaving the water running too long while they’re washing dishes you can turn from greeny to meany. When I watch my brother chug three, four, five plastic bottles of water per day I get the same urge to strangle him that I had as a seven year old when he hogged the TV. And when I wake up in the morning to find that my roommates have left the lights on all night I want to leave nasty little reminder notes about how they’re killing polar bears. But, I’m not a jerk. Or at least I try not to be. What I want to know is how we can be more constructive in our efforts to get the people we love to start loving the environment. So, a few tips:

Don't be an eco-elitist!

1. I’ve found that any version of ‘Thou shalt not’ is a no-no. We all have mothers who provide enough guilt trips to last us until the last ice caps melt, so, needless to say, lay off the scolding and preaching. Eco-guilt is not an effective way to get people on board with your cause.

2. When a person wags their finger, they might as well be saying “I am perfect and you are not.” Confessing a few sins you’ve committed helps to take you off your high horse. If you admit that you don’t always wash out the peanut butter jar to recycle it and instead just trash it, or that you forget to unplug your phone charger when you aren’t using it then you can level the playing field enough to create an open and healthy line of communication between you and the bottled-water-drinker.

3. Don’t make it seem like you are personally attacking the person. Present their problematic behavior in the context of wider issues (i.e. water scarcity, over-consumption, unnecessary waste…) and mention how the fight against these environmental problems is a group effort. We are all trying to make small changes in our daily lives to manage climate change, and this process is something your friend can be a part of. But when you call him/her out on littering, you make it seem like that person is single-handedly ruining the earth. It’s not like they’re setting out to hunt for the last albino baby seal, they just haven’t realized their environmental impact yet.

4. Using “I” statements is another way to avoid guilt trips and personal attacks. So instead of saying “You’re wasting water!” say, “I try not to use so much water because I realized that it might be affecting our water supply.” Ideally, you will come off sounding less critical and your friend will be more likely to emulate your green behavior.

5. Another way to address these tricky topics is to go about it from the money-saving angle. If a person realizes that installing energy-efficient light bulbs in their homes would save them $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb, maybe their ears would perk up. Or if you mentioned that a Prius’ fuel cost per year is $829 (compared to a Hummers’ which is $3,223 perhaps they’d go green-if only for the sake of their wallets.

I hope these tips help. Keep on fightin’ the good fight.