Courtesy: SustainablePR
Tony DeFazio sees the economics of the environment and sustainability exploding over the next five years, and he thinks he can help organizations tell stories about that nationally, from an office in Glens Falls, the former Philadelphian said in an interview today.
DeFazio said companies from Amazon to a small Glens Falls mom and pop “are not telling their sustainability stories in an effective manner.”
However, his company, SustainablePR, "Public relations for a green planet," will not focus on social media or advertising.
“What we do better than anyone else is earned media,” he said. It’s a term generally used when stories that are not paid advertisements or placements make their way into the news itself. He said he talks to a lot of producers, editors, writers and others to help his clients’ stories get told.
The 30-year veteran of public relations in Philadelphia said he knew that he wanted to do something else and, with time on his hands during the pandemic, was reading about industry changes. He moved to the area in October.
He said he could see the sustainability marketplace would be big. His research said the industry would grow $20 billion in the next five years. “It literally blew me away.”
He chose to move here because of his “30 year love affair with the Adirondacks.” Plus, he says on his website, he sees this area as strategically placed in the mountains but near Albany and Montreal.
A year after the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, he began to travel here with his family, to ski, hike and fish for trout. And he plans to use the mountains and rivers as the inspiration for his company’s work.
The current company is four people, including DeFazio, spread around the country, and he plans to find commercial office space in Glens Falls next summer and bring on some employees here. The Glens Falls firm’s website along with his firm in Philadelphia list 276 Glen Street as the current corporate address.
"While the venture is rooted in my passion for the environment, it is poised to leverage a confluence of trends that are coming together to create a huge market opportunity," his website says.