Dinner at Tiamo was something of a family affair, beginning with cocktails and introductions of the newest arrivals. At the table I met Mike Hartman, who founded the resort with his wife, Petagay. The story behind the place, as unwound by Mike, was in many ways the opposite of what I had expected: no tree-hugging visionary master plan here. Instead, Tiamo's radical methods were the cumulative result of prudent, pragmatic business decisions.

"I am just a Hoosier farm boy," said Mike. "We ended up being green because I was basically too cheap to go the other route." The decision that determined everything else was going solar. To connect the resort to the faraway diesel-powered electrical grid—on the opposite side of South Andros, through a dozen miles of roadless swampy jungle—would have cost Mike and Petagay $900,000. A cheaper option was a $125,000 solar farm of nine-foot-wide flat solar photovoltaic panels that turn the sun's radiation into electricity.

From that choice followed others: superefficient lightbulbs, fans, and appliances; no television or air-conditioning; instead of cooking the sheets in dryers, hanging them in the tropical sun; and so on. As a result, Tiamo uses only as much power as the average three-bedroom American home, even though about twenty guests and fifteen staff are present at almost any given time.

"One of the biggest energy savings was getting rid of the commercial ice maker," said Mike. He explained the total illogic of this appliance, which (long story short) freezes water and then heats up the resulting ice to shake it loose. "The thing used three times as much power as the whole rest of the resort. Now we make ice with…[dramatic pause] ice trays…in a superefficient freezer." This costs less money even though it requires more labor, and creating jobs helps keep wealth circulating into local communities.

Although Tiamo is isolated and South Andros is sparsely populated, the resort has put down roots in the area. In addition to relying as much as possible on local suppliers and contractors, Tiamo also funds some Andros businesses and scholarships. Its most important role is perhaps that of employer. The resort has hired only thirty-five people, but its workers earn decent wages, enough to allow several of them to return to their rural hometowns from Nassau. "It's crowded, expensive, and kind of rough there," said one young woman with whom I chatted while enjoying an afternoon beer. "It's a city over there, with all those city problems." Building environmental consciousness is central to Tiamo's staff training and to its involvement with local business and government.

The resort's laundry and kitchen use phosphate-free soaps, to avoid algae blooms that could kill the coral which draws tourists in the first place. Beer and wine bottles—of which there are quite a few—are broken up and given to a local contractor, who uses them as aggregate in concrete. High-tech composting toilet systems that mix waste with cedar chips have been installed; after six months in the tropical heat, this becomes soil—a substance in short supply on the Bahamas' low-lying, sandy limestone islands. But unless you ask for a tour, you are not likely to see this eco-infrastructure, because, as Mike put it, "Nobody comes here to think about composting toilets."