Costa Rica is a pioneer of sustainable economic achievement. For 50 years, the country and its citizens have been charting a path through the global challenge of both profiting from and harmonizing with nature. It thus comes as no surprise that the nation was named the “Champions of the Earth” by the United Nations in 2019. Following are brief summaries of three of Costa Rica’s most striking initiatives, and then I’ll present my own impression of their successes.

In 2022, Costa Rica launched the National Adaptation Plan (NAP), outlining their country-wide commitment to understanding climate management and implementing effective solutions on a local level. While they are appropriately forward-looking, given the focus on climate-centric investment and eco-competitive developments, they’re still operating with prudence as they place heavy emphasis on establishing systems that can resist inevitable climate-driven strife, resulting from past and even future instabilities.

Costa Rica has proven its willingness to go toe-to-toe with plastics. Their pay to throw initiative yielded a 469% increase in recycled plastic over 2 years, according to the Ministry of Health. This, coupled with a ban on single-use plastics (as part of the “Law to Combat Plastic Pollution and Protect the Environment,” Law No. 9786), represents a nation-wide commitment to independence from the pollutant.

Energy production is incredibly important to any country, and technically to the entire globe. The living world is so only through the generation and transfer of energy from one source to the next. In line with the third axis of the World Energy Trilemma Index (World Energy Council), Costa Rica produces roughly 99% of its energy from sustainable sources, 67.5% of which is in the form of hydropower. Given the country’s geographic luck, its capacity for hydropower will continue to be a driving force in its mission to achieve permanent and complete sustainable energy generation.

Overall, this knowledge makes me excited to visit Costa Rica. It’s inspiring to know that they are concerned for the environment, and that they turn this concern into action. Most of all, I want to experience seeing the environment from the perspective of the people living there. Much of Costa Rica’s success with the climate has been driven by the citizens, and so I recognize the likelihood that simply sharing a meal with them has the potential to open my eyes to new ideas.