Eco-Economy Insider is a website about eco friendly ideas, product recommendations and news about how protecting nature creates jobs and boosts economies.
Hi, I’m Jon Corsiglia
I’ve spent most of my career trying to close the gap between what environmental science tells us and what the public actually hears. That gap is not an accident.
My first real job out of college was at Environmental Media Services, a D.C. nonprofit with a specific mission: take the skills and tactics from the world of professional media relations and put them to work for environmental causes. The basic logic was hard to argue with. Well-funded corporate interests who wanted environmental protections weakened or gone were already paying for the best PR firms, the best ad campaigns, the best message consultants that money could buy.
The public-interest side of those fights needed someone in their corner who understood how that game worked. So that’s what EMS did. We helped scientists, advocates, and researchers get their stories into the news and in front of the people who could actually do something about them.
That experience shaped how I think about everything I do now. Messages matter. Framing matters. Who’s telling the story and how they tell it matters enormously. And most people, given good information presented honestly, will make reasonable choices.
I’ve spent years in environmental communications, mostly focused on oceans. I was a communications specialist at NOAA, including work on the Coral Reef Conservation Program. I led U.S. media relations for the Marine Stewardship Council, which certifies sustainable fisheries. I was press secretary at the Environmental Working Group. I worked on energy saver communications for the U.S. Department of Energy. And I worked for the World Resources Institute’s Ocean Programs.
None of this makes me an infallible source. But it does mean I’ve spent a long time learning how environmental information travels, where it gets distorted, and how to communicate it in a way that doesn’t require people to already agree with you.
What this site is actually about
Something I find myself saying more than anything else: the most climate-friendly purchase is usually the one you don’t make.
Before I recommend anything on this site, I want to be honest about that. If you already own something that works, keeping it is almost always the better environmental choice. If you can find what you need secondhand or free, that’s usually better than buying new, because you’re not creating demand for the manufacture of another product using virgin raw materials. The second-hand economy is underrated.
When buying new does make sense, I try to think about the full lifecycle. Products that require fewer consumables over time, like a reusable coffee filter instead of paper ones, or a safety razor instead of disposable cartridges, often have a much smaller footprint than the upfront purchase suggests. That kind of math doesn’t always make for exciting product roundups, but it’s the honest version of eco-friendly buying advice.
So when I write product reviews or buying guides here, I’ll always circle back to that hierarchy: don’t buy, buy used, or if buying new, buy less. I try to apply that standard to my own life too, with mixed results, like most people.
The eco-economy idea
I started this site because I kept running into a version of the same false choice: you can have a healthy environment, or you can have a healthy economy, but not both. That framing is wrong, and the evidence against it keeps accumulating. Clean energy now employs more people than fossil fuels in most states. Protecting 30% of the planet’s land and ocean would generate economic returns that outweigh the costs by a factor of five to one.
A bit more about me
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my family. I spend a lot of time outside. I’m a dad, which has a way of making the long-term consequences of today’s choices feel less abstract.
Stay in touch
The best way to follow along is to subscribe to the newsletter. I send it when I have something worth saying.
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