As communities invest in clean energy and climate resilience, small businesses can help drive the transition while harnessing new business opportunities and more efficient and climate-resilient technology to expand their businesses, improve profitability, and generate local wealth. This brief uses Tucson, Arizona, as a case study to explore the role small businesses play in economic activities and sectors central to the clean energy transition and climate resilience efforts.
Why This Matters
Small and medium-sized businesses, which employ just under half of workers in the Tucson region, are vital to the local economy and have the potential to be key beneficiaries—and even drivers—of the clean energy transition and resilience investments.
What We Found
Drawing on industry data and stakeholder interviews, this brief explores how Tucson’s small business ecosystem is positioned to participate in growing climate sustainability and resilience sectors. The analysis highlights opportunities and barriers facing local firms, including access to capital, technical assistance, public procurement, and regulatory hurdles.
From local interviews and a focus group of small business owners, we learned that while small businesses can drive advances in the sustainable and resilient economy, they are not currently playing a leading role in Tucson. Local experts characterized small firms as consumers of green technologies and practices such as energy efficiency upgrades, solar installations, electrified equipment, water-saving infrastructure, and fleet or building improvements—investments often motivated by cost savings, resilience, and compliance. Less often were they viewed as leading new market activity. Interviewees and focus group participants noted that many small business owners are eager to reduce operating costs and improve performance, but only typically engage on a project-by-project basis when incentives, rebates, or clear returns are available.
We offer practical strategies for local stakeholders to expand entrepreneurship so that the benefits of resilience and sustainability investments are shared broadly among local businesses in the Tucson region. These strategies include expanding access to capital, providing advisory services, and prioritizing small businesses in the provision of clean energy and resilience investments.
How We Did It
We designed a mixed-methods study to develop a framework for defining and assessing Tucson’s sustainable and resilient economy. For a detailed description of the analysis, please refer to the appendix in our companion report, Sustainable and Resilient Economic Development in Tucson, Arizona.
