The plus3 Costa Rica trip is coming to an end and my understanding of renewable energy and green infrastructure has changed a lot. Before this trip, I mostly thought about sustainability in a simple way: solar panels, wind turbines, recycling, and trying to be environmentally friendly. After seeing Costa Rica in person, I realized that there is a lot more depth than I originally thought.
One of the clearest examples was Lake Arenal. At first, it felt like a place for kayaking, paddleboarding, and enjoying the landscape (even though it rained), but then I learned how important it is to Costa Rica’s hydroelectric system. The lake is man-made and helps provide water for energy production, which showed me how infrastructure can serve more than one purpose. It supports renewable energy, tourism, and water management at the same time. This expanded my understanding because I saw that green infrastructure is not always obvious. Sometimes it looks like a beautiful lake, but behind it is a system that helps power the country. Our group researched and we found out that this lake accounts for 12% of all the energy in Costa Rica!
The wind farm was another example that made me think more critically about renewable energy. Seeing the wind turbines in person made Costa Rica’s energy system feel real instead of just something we researched. Wind energy is clean and impressive, but the visit also showed me that it is not perfect. The land has to be cleared, the turbines are expensive, and wind energy depends on weather conditions. That helped me understand the business side of sustainability. A company or country cannot rely on one form of renewable energy alone. It needs a diversified system with hydroelectric, wind,, solar, and backup plans for when one source is not producing enough.
Riverside also stood out to me because it showed green infrastructure on a smaller and more personal scale. The restaurant used recycled materials, natural light, composting, local ingredients, and a design that worked with the space instead of against it. That example stuck with me because it proved that sustainability does not always have to be huge or high-tech. A business can make practical choices every day that reduce waste and connect it more closely to the surrounding community. For my future career in business, this was important because it showed me that strong companies do not need to treat sustainability as a separate department. It can be built into operations, design, sourcing, and customer experience.
The Monteverde Cloud Forest and the Monteverde Institute gave me another perspective. There, sustainability was not just about energy, but about managing access to protect a place that tourism depends on. Parts of the forest felt more restricted than I expected, but that made sense once I thought about the pressure created by heavy visitation and climate change. The Monteverde Institute also helped me see that a sustainable community is different from just a sustainable attraction. This connects to green infrastructure because the question is not only how to build things, but who gets to decide how land, roads, forests, and tourism systems are used. Good sustainability has to protect the environment while also considering the people who live there.
The most lasting impact on my future career in business is that I now see sustainability as a strategy, not just a value. Costa Rica showed me that renewable energy and green infrastructure can make a country more competitive, attract tourism, support local businesses, and build a stronger national brand. At the same time, I also saw the challenges: high upfront costs, climate risk, land use tradeoffs, and the danger of using sustainability only as marketing. In business, I want to remember that the best companies are not the ones that simply say they are sustainable. They are the ones that make sustainability part of how they actually operate. Costa Rica made that idea real for me.