Today we visited two very different companies, Kyndryl and Dos Pinos. Kyndryl is a global IT services company with 80,000 employees operating in 60+ countries. They chose Costa Rica specifically for the educated workforce, which makes sense. They have invested a lot in their people too, with 98 hours of training per employee and over 35,000 certifications awarded. From an ecotourism standpoint, though, Kyndryl is not really in that conversation. They have some sustainability goals like planting 300,000 trees and aiming for net zero emissions by 2040, but that is more corporate responsibility than anything tied to the land or tourism. The value they create for Costa Rica is mostly through jobs and investment, but the decisions and profits still flow back to New York.

Dos Pinos felt completely different. It was founded in 1947 by 25 dairy farmers who put their resources together, and now has over 1,900 farms. The profits stay with the farmers, not outside shareholders. That model is actually a lot closer to how ecotourism works, where the local community owns the resource, manages it, and directly benefits from it. Dos Pinos also won sustainability awards for how they process and reuse wastewater, and they recycle materials from production into things like school desks and roofing. That kind of relationship with the land and community is exactly what makes ecotourism sustainable long-term.

If I had to pick which model creates more lasting value for Costa Rica, I would definitely pick Dos Pinos. Kyndryl brings jobs that matter, but Dos Pinos keeps the value inside the country and inside the community, which is the whole point of sustainable business.