How to Encourage Others to Conserve

Conversation only works if everyone participates. But people can prove resistant if they feel like they're being badgered, and well-meaning souls trying to help may actually discourage others if they use pushy or abrasive arguments. If you want to encourage others to conserve, help them to reach that decision themselves rather than forcing them to conserve via browbeating or guilt.

Instructions

1. Lead by example. The best and easiest method of encouragement is simply to adopt the traits yourself. Conserve energy in your home and use alternate means of transportation like bikes or walking. Dress warmly in the winter rather than using your heater, and apply weather stripping and similar measures to your home. Friends and family who take notice may adopt similar strategies without requiring encouragement.

2. Share information about local recycling centers, and similar programs in your area. Sometimes people don't utilize such services simply because they don't know where they are.

3. Ask friends and neighbors to save their recyclables for you and then come around and collect them every couple of weeks or so. They may catch on and start taking it to the recycling center themselves, and even if they don't, you're still encouraging them to conserve.

4. Emphasize the financial benefits as well as the environmental benefits. If you conserve energy, your electric bills will go down and the monthly pinch will be reduced. Similarly, many recycling centers accept cash for renewable products--this is a quick and easy way to make a little extra money.

5. Lobby your local government to take steps towards conserving. Ask them to offer tax benefits for adopting conservation programs and to provide other incentives for citizens who participate in energy conservation.

6. Ask your office about options like recycling used paper and turning the air conditioning off after the workday is done. Such steps have a tangential effect of getting others to consider environmental factors, even though they are not directed at them.

7. Establish biking or walking programs that encourage people in your area to exercise. The health benefits of such activities go without saying, but people who get into the habit will start biking or walking to places they might otherwise drive.

Tips & Warnings

• The majority of people are happy to take steps to conserve, so long as it doesn't cost them anything. While diligent sacrifice may be required, that's not what you want to stress when you encourage others to converse. Instead, ask them to consider the benefits of conservation--immediate benefits, which help them in the here and now--and encourage them in those terms.