By Tyler Butler (Collaboration for Good), Amanda Jordan (City of Phoenix), and Jeanine Jerkovic (City of Surprise)

Across the United States, sustainability is no longer a niche priority — it’s increasingly tied to economic competitiveness, operational resilience, and long-term cost savings.

But for many small businesses, nonprofits, and local governments, one challenge persists: how to turn sustainability goals into practical, day-to-day action. 

Even in regions like Arizona, where technical assistance, incentives, and programs are widely available, adoption often stalls. Limited staff capacity, uncertainty around return on investment, and difficulty navigating fragmented resources all contribute to a familiar reality — organizations know sustainability matters but struggle to get started.

Arizona’s participation in IEDC’s inaugural Sustainable Economic Development Learning Lab created an opportunity to take a closer look at this challenge — and to test what a more coordinated, user-centered approach could look like.

From Fragmentation to Focus

Arizona’s economy is powered by small businesses, nonprofits, and local government — organizations that often operate with lean teams and limited discretionary resources. For these groups, even well-designed sustainability programs can feel out of reach.

A statewide survey conducted through the Learning Lab confirmed what many practitioners already suspected. The biggest barriers weren’t philosophical; they were practical:

• Lack of time or staff capacity (34%)
• Cost concerns or unclear return on investment (33%)
• Uncertainty about which tools apply (33%)
• Not knowing where to start (24%)

At the same time, Arizona is not lacking in sustainability resources. Utilities, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies offer a wide range of support — from energy and water-use audits to benchmarking tools, fleet evaluations, and green business training programs.

These include organizations such as Arizona Public Service (APS), Salt River Project (SRP), Arizona State University’s Energy Efficiency Center, Local First Arizona, the Arizona Clean Energy Hub, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program (USDA REAP), and the Maricopa Small Business Development Center.

The challenge isn’t availability — it’s access and alignment.

For many organizations, the sustainability landscape is simply too complex to navigate without dedicated time and expertise. And for economic developers, this creates a familiar tension: how to connect businesses to valuable resources when the system itself is difficult to navigate.

A Different Kind of Solution

Rather than creating a new program, Learning Lab participants took a different approach.

Working across organizations — including the Collaboration for Good, the City of Phoenix, and the City of Surprise — the team focused on a simple but powerful question:

What if the problem isn’t a lack of tools, but how those tools are organized and accessed?

The result is the Arizona Sustainability Navigator — an emerging framework designed to make sustainability more accessible by improving how existing resources are surfaced, understood, and applied.

Instead of adding to an already crowded landscape, the Navigator aims to bring clarity to it.

The vision is a statewide platform that helps organizations quickly understand their options and take action, with features such as: 

• Clear pathways to rebates and incentives
• Personalized sustainability action plans
• ROI calculators and case studies
• Practical planning tools and peer examples, and
• Connections to funding and technical assistance.

At its core, the Navigator is designed to reduce friction. When organizations can see what’s relevant, understand the benefits, and access support in a logical sequence, sustainability becomes far more achievable.

What Made This Work Possible

The Navigator didn’t emerge from a single organization — it grew out of collaboration.

Through the Learning Lab, the team combined statewide survey data with in-depth interviews across public agencies, nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, and business support groups. The survey — drawing on 125 respondents across small businesses, nonprofits, and economic development organizations — helped identify consistent patterns across sectors and geographies.

To add qualitative depth, the team conducted 12 in-depth stakeholder interviews with organizations spanning the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including the Arizona Commerce Authority; the cities of Phoenix, Surprise, Flagstaff, and Tucson; Local First Arizona; the Arizona Community Foundation; the Flinn Foundation; Circular Arizona; Plug and Play Tech Center; the Arizona Small Business Association; and Keep Phoenix Beautiful.

Across these conversations, a consistent theme emerged: organizations weren’t lacking interest — they were lacking clarity.

A comprehensive landscape scan reinforced this finding. Arizona’s ecosystem is rich with tools and programs, but they are spread across institutions and often difficult to piece together from the perspective of a small business or nonprofit. By bringing these perspectives together, the team was able to shift the focus from building new solutions to making the existing system more usable.

Moving from Idea to Implementation

With the research phase complete, the work is now shifting toward development and testing.

Next steps include refining the user experience, building out the platform, and launching pilots in Phoenix and Surprise. The team is also developing a fundraising strategy to support long-term sustainability and continuing to co-design the tool with stakeholders to ensure it reflects real-world needs. The long-term goal is ambitious but practical: a centralized, easy-to-navigate hub that brings together sustainability resources, funding opportunities, and technical assistance in one place.

Why This Matters for Economic Developers

While the Arizona Sustainability Navigator is rooted in one state, the lessons extend well beyond it.

First, it highlights a shift in how we think about adoption. Organizations are not resistant to sustainability — they are navigating complexity with limited capacity. Simplifying that experience can unlock action more effectively than introducing new programs.

Second, it reinforces the role of economic developers as connectors. EDOs are often the bridge between businesses and the resources designed to support them. Integrating sustainability into that role is a natural extension of existing work.

Finally, it underscores the importance of design. Tools and programs are only as effective as they are usable. For many organizations, clarity and accessibility matter more than technical sophistication.

A Model Worth Watching

The Arizona Sustainability Navigator is still evolving, but it offers a promising model for how regions can approach sustainability in a more coordinated, user-centered way. By focusing on navigation, not just innovation, it reframes sustainability as practical and achievable, rather than overwhelming or out of reach.

For practitioners looking to apply this approach:

• Map your local sustainability ecosystem. What resources already exist, and where are the gaps in visibility or coordination?
• Listen to your end users. Where are businesses and nonprofits getting stuck? What would make it easier for them to act?
• Prioritize navigation over new programs. Small improvements in clarity and access can unlock meaningful uptake.
• Build partnerships. No single organization owns this space—progress depends on alignment. 

Most importantly, focus on making sustainability easier to act on — not just easier to talk about. For economic developers, that shift may be the most important takeaway. When complexity is reduced, action becomes possible — and when action becomes possible, sustainability becomes a driver of stronger, more resilient local economies.

Read the full whitepaper:
https://collaborationforgood.com/understanding-barriers-to-sustainability-adoption-for-arizona-small-businesses-and-nonprofits/

About the AZ Sustainability Development Learning Lab

The Arizona Sustainable Economic Development Learning Lab is a pilot initiative led by the International Economic Development Council to explore how sustainability can be more effectively integrated into economic development practice. Supported by the Arizona Community Foundation and the Flinn Foundation as cornerstone funders, the Lab brought together economic developers, local governments, and cross-sector partners from across Arizona to test new approaches, generate applied research, and co-develop practical tools — like the Arizona Sustainability Navigator — that help communities translate sustainability goals into actionable, economically grounded strategies.