diff --git a/project/JdkOptions.scala b/project/JdkOptions.scala
index 701065bfc6..b5bd7a1d09 100644
--- a/project/JdkOptions.scala
+++ b/project/JdkOptions.scala
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ object JdkOptions extends AutoPlugin {
           jdk11options(java8home)
         case None =>
           throw new MessageOnlyException(
-            "A JDK 8 installation was not found, but is required to build Apache Pekko. To manually specify a JDK 8 installation, use the \"set every jdk8home := \\\"/path/to/jdk\\\" sbt command. If you have no JDK 8 installation, target your system JDK with the \"set every targetSystemJdk := true\" sbt command, but beware resulting artifacts will not work on JDK 8")
+            "A JDK 8 installation was not found, but is required to build Apache Pekko. To manually specify a JDK 8 installation, set the JAVA_8_HOME environment variable to its path or use the \"set every jdk8home := \\\"/path/to/jdk\\\" sbt command. If you have no JDK 8 installation, target your system JDK with the \"set every targetSystemJdk := true\" sbt command, but beware resulting artifacts will not work on JDK 8")
       }
 
   val targetJdkSettings = Seq(targetSystemJdk := false, jdk8home := sys.env.get("JAVA_8_HOME").getOrElse(""))