Frugally Green

Have you ever gotten in an argument with a friend because they don’t recycle?  I have.  What about made fun of someone for being so materialistic and never saving their money?  Yep, I’ve done that too.  All of these arguments and shallow remarks resulted from an attempt to get someone to change – to see the light (my light!) and commit to a more sustainable life.  Guess how many times it’s worked?  Yep…none.  How many times has it worked for you?

When we feel passionately about something, it’s natural to want others to be just as excited as we are.  We want everyone to know how great it feels to save money and do something positive for the environment.  However, as we all learn growing up, the world does not revolve around us and not everybody shares our passions in the same way we do.  Sometimes this angers us.  Sometimes it can lead to the kind of arguments mentioned above.  Almost every time, it seems to lead to a strained relationship and a missed opportunity.

One major lesson I’ve learned over the years is that when it comes to building relationships and being influential, it’s all about “them,” not “you.”  You must give to get.  There is no way around it.  When you give people what they want and, more importantly, what they need, you get back without ever having to ask.  So, if you’re trying to convince your friend, partner, or family member to adopt some of your frugally green characteristics, what can you do to give them the things they need in order to make such a change?  After some reflection, I’ve identified 3 major tactics that you can use in any situation to amicably foster a change in someone.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

When we argue unrelentingly, what are we really trying to accomplish?  I know that most of the time when I’m arguing, I don’t really expect the person on the other side to concede defeat, but I usually want them to express that they understand my position.  If they don’t admit that they understand where I’m coming from, I feel like I’ve failed in explaining my position.  But, in order to get someone to understand where you’re coming from – to effectively communicate your position – you must know how someone is willing to receive it.  This is something that can quickly be learned by listening (really listening) to how that person feels about your position.

But it’s not just listening to words, it’s listening to how their spoken.  It’s watching their body language for clues about how they feel. It’s all of these things and it’s all at once.  By really paying attention to someone when they’re talking (and when they’re listening), you can quickly pick up how they’re reacting and  tailor your communication in a way that they are comfortable with.  I have a friend who doesn’t recycle.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ribbed him about it only to end up in a little argument that didn’t go anywhere.  I later found out that he actually wanted to recycle, but he was scared to start because he’d never learned how. Turns out we were continuously arguing about the wrong thing!

Help remove passive barriers

So let’s say you employed all of your stellar listening skills and were able to find some common ground. Your work is not done!  In the the example above, my friend wanted to change, but he didn’t know how.  I think everyone experiences a time in their life when they desire to change something about themselves, but fail to do so, at least at first, due to some perceived barrier.  Most commonly, this is knowledge.  Looking at my situation, my buddy wanted to recycle, but he never learned how.  He actually feared recycling because he’d heard that when something non-recyclable accidentally gets mixed in, the whole batch gets thrown away.  He was afraid that if he just started, he would do more harm than good and he didn’t know where to learn.  He’d also remembered hearing people complain about how complicated it was years ago to sort everything properly.  Luckily, he had a friend that was more than capable of getting him up and running with his own, simple, recycling plan.  Once he realized how easy it was, his attitude towards it changed completely.  If I had just written him off as lazy or uncaring, I’d still be arguing (or no longer speaking!) with him. And to think, this could have been resolved ages ago if I had just paid a little more attention.

So often we don’t change something we know we need to because of a trivial barrier that we set up for ourselves.  “I would buy compact florescent bulbs, but they’re so expensive!”  “Air drying my laundry makes my socks crunchy! I hate crunchy socks!” There are so many easy ways to work around these inconveniences.  By focusing on the problem rather than the solution, we allow ourselves to continue to ignore what we know is the right thing to do.  Any chance you get to genuinely help someone work through barriers like these is just as much an opportunity for us as it is them.

Empower, don’t belittle

When you resort to personal attacks, there is only one outcome that can be confidently predicted: absolutely nothing will change. This is the fastest way to make sure that nobody benefits from any dialogue. What is your natural reaction to being insulted?  If you’re like most, it’s either to flare up and respond in kind, taking offense to every word, or to clam up, refusing to speak and trying your damnedest to tune out whatever your attacker is saying. Either way, it’s the end of any useful conversation.

People are receptive, interested in what you’re saying, and willing to change when you instill excitement in them about an opportunity.  Would you want to take someone’s advice who said you were too stupid and lazy to?  What if they pointed out that you’re too smart and driven not to? Which scenario would cause you to be more receptive?

What it all boils down to

When you look at what these points boil down to, you could say that these are things we all learned when we were 5.  That’s very true.  For some reason, though, it’s very common for this advice to get misplaced, perhaps by the tasks and worries that escalate as we develop into adults.  For some, these concepts disappear completely by the time adulthood arrives.  It’s never too late to refresh ourselves on this and remember that those who have made the largest contributions to mankind were often also the most humble.  When we focus on taking care of others, others will take care of us.

So, the next time someone mentions that they drive a big SUV or buy new clothes every month, don’t put them down. Don’t tell them how much better your gas mileage is on your bicycle or that you only shop at the thrift store.  That doesn’t help them at all.  Instead, ask them questions.  Find out what makes them tick. Then, explain why you do what you do and present opportunities based on what you’ve learned about them. You have to build relationships before you can effect change.

Once again, I’ve found myself fantasizing about my dream home.  It would be smallish, just outside of the city and filled with super efficient appliances powered by renewable energy sourced from my own property.  Maybe even a wind turbine or two (I just read a book about building your own wind turbine).  Right at the peak of this fantasy, I was jolted back to reality as I began to think about how tremendous the up-front costs of putting together a system like this could be.  Before I became entirely discouraged, I remembered a commercial I’d seen earlier about incentives available to consumers looking to improve the efficiency of their homes, buy efficient appliances, or install renewable energy systems.

Your tax dollars at work

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one concerned about the up-front costs of the most efficient technologies for our homes.  The current administration has made environmental sustainability a high priority for our nation and, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, earmarked a significant chunk of money for energy efficiency.  Part of this money will go toward helping you make your own home more efficient by purchasing new appliances and installing renewable energy systems.

Energy efficiency

It is now possible to receive a tax credit worth 30% of the energy efficient upgrades you make to your home (up to $1,500).  This is an improvement over the existing credit of only 10%.  This credit would apply to the following types of energy saving improvements:

• Adding insulation to your home to help keep the heat inside during the winter and outside during the summer
• Installing a reflective roof in order to minimize the amount of heat that is absorbed into your home during hot weather
• Replacing existing doors and/or windows with better insulated ones to, again, keep that heat where it’s supposed to be
• Upgrading your HVAC system or water heater to a more efficient model
• Installing a biomass stove that burns a plant derived substance for heating purposes (like wood or pellets).  This option surprises me as the EPA says that pollution from wood burning is the #1 cancer risk here in Oregon.

There is a small catch to all of this, however.  If you want to cash in on these credits, they have to be installed and operational by the end of 2010.  Luckily, Frugally Green readers are very money savvy, so they shouldn’t have any problem saving up for some of these things by the end of next year.

Since adding insulation is the most cost effective improvement for most people, here’s a pretty good FAQ targeting that audience as well as a “heat map” showing the US Department of Energy’s recommendations for insulation levels for different regions of the country.  These resources are provided by an insulation company, but I found them to be fairly useful for my research.

Renewable energy

The government has also decided that getting homeowners to install their own renewable energy systems is a top priority.  This is why they have made the terms even more favorable for those of you that really want to go the extra mile.  If you install a RE system at your primary residence, you are eligible for a tax credit worth 30% of the cost with no dollar limit. This credit would apply to:

• Geo-thermal heat pumps that derive their energy from the mass of the earth
• Solar water heaters that trap heat from the sun to warm your water
• Photovoltaic systems which absorb the sun’s rays and convert them to usable electricity
• Small wind turbines that convert the power of the wind to electricity through an alternator
• Fuel cell systems which can take nearly any liquid or gaseous fuel and cleanly convert them to electrical energy

The time frame for implementing these RE systems is also much more generous.  You are eligible for the credit until the end of 2016.  If you’ve had an inclination already to implement some type of renewable energy on your property, you now have, at the time of this post, 7 1/2 years to get your funds together to save 30% on the cost of the system.  I should also note that if you’re cursing the daylight right now because you’ve already done something like this, you can still take advantage of a, admittedly much less robust, credit for systems that have already been installed.

Also, this chart published by Energy Star is a good place to see all the federal tax credits available to you for the various items that qualify.

State and local incentives

You might be interested to know that the federal government isn’t the only one offering some help to get us on a more sustainable path.  Many states and even local governments offer incentives to make your home more efficient or install renewable energy. DSIRE is the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.  Their website provides a map that you can click through in order find all the applicable rebates and tax incentives available to you for the state that you live in.

For instance, here in Oregon, residents are eligible for personal tax credits, property tax exemptions, and even direct rebates for the purchase of super-efficient appliances or the installation of renewable energy systems.  These incentives can really add up and help to make the purchase of a highly efficient appliance or RE system very competitive with their industry standard competitors.

Even without the incentives being offered to us, we should carefully consider the cost savings and benefits that we can realize by purchasing more efficient products.  It’s important to remember that becoming frugally green is a long-term commitment and, as such, requires us to occasionally look past the initial cost of an item in order to see the long-term savings that it will provide not only us, but society as well.