Is the Mediterranean lifestyle the key to climate resilience?
We’ve all heard that a Mediterranean diet full of fresh vegetables, olive oil and fish is good for our health. But what about their overall lifestyle? I’ve recently returned from a short break in Ibiza and it got me thinking about how people there (and elsewhere in the Med) live during the hot summer months. I think it’s the first holiday to the Med I’ve been on where it felt cooler there than it had done at home. Of course, access to the sea, a pool and an air conditioned hotel room helps enormously…
Ibiza is known for its late-night lifestyle but it really got me thinking about how we need to adapt to hotter summers. With June 2026 the warmest on record, the heatwaves we have seen in July so far and another predicted for August, this is something that won’t be going away, no matter how deep our emissions cuts. Yes, we need to adapt our buildings and infrastructure but should we also adapt how and when we go about our daily routine, and just be more Mediterranean?
I’ll start with physical adaptations. The debate around air conditioning in the UK has never been louder – unsurprising really after three heatwaves in quick succession. The Climate Change Committee's latest adaptation report is clear: passive cooling should come first. Shading, trees, reflective surfaces, better ventilation, and smarter building design can all help keep temperatures down without increasing energy demand. All of this was evident in Eivissa (Ibiza old town) where building shutters were firmly closed, external canopies, street trees and building orientation helped with passive cooling. But the CCC’s report is equally clear that passive measures won't always be enough. As the climate warms, active cooling is likely to become essential in some homes and critical buildings such as hospitals, care homes, and schools, particularly where vulnerable people are at risk. As with most places in the Med, A/C was widespread in hotels, public buildings and many homes.
As well as keeping the environment around our homes cool we also need to design buildings that stay comfortable while using as little energy as possible. It’s often said that UK homes are "built to keep heat in", but insulation is still part of the answer as it can help keep the heat out too – so don’t scrap those fabric first principles just yet. Rather than jumping straight to air conditioning, we should treat overheating as a design challenge: improve the building fabric, add shading and green infrastructure, prioritise passive cooling, and reduce demand wherever possible. Then, where cooling is genuinely needed, use it strategically as part of a resilient response to a hotter future.
Physical adaptations are essential, but Ibiza got me thinking that temporal or lifestyle adaptations are a huge part of the solution. In July we saw widespread school closures, transport infrastructure failure, heat related health problems and much more. But what if we shifted our day onto a Mediterranean time zone during summer months? We can’t just stop educating children and expect working parents to drop everything and look after them with disastrous effects on our economy. Why not start the day at 6am and take advantage of the earlier, slightly cooler hours? A long siesta over the hottest hours of the day would help everyone catch up on sleep and reduce the stress of trying to dash about our normal activities in 30℃+ heat. In Ibiza, GP surgeries, shops and many other services were open late into the evening, enabling everyone, including the elderly and vulnerable to access critical facilities during cooler hours. It also enables a booming nighttime economy – and it’s not all about parties and clubs. It was so nice to see generations coming together to play cards on chairs outside their houses, enjoy a pizza with friends in a local restaurant and have a catch up when it was much cooler. The high level of activity at night also really helps with safety and security. I never once felt unsafe walking through the town really late at night. The active frontages on the street really helped, as did the late running (air conditioned) public buses and total mixture of old and young all out and about. It felt so inclusive and I’m sure it helps the economy enormously.
I know that it’s pretty radical to suggest that we switch up our whole way of life and know that there are many people whose jobs just won’t allow them to follow this pattern, but I do think there is a lot to be said for living like Mediterraneans in a Mediterranean climate with both physical and lifestyle adaptations. There is much scientific evidence on the detrimental effect that extreme heat has on productivity so there is most definitely an economic argument to be had here as well as a social one. Perhaps we adopt two time zones: a summer one more like Ibiza and a winter one more like we are used to, when, let’s face it, no one really minds hunkering down and working when it’s raining and dark for months on end!
Postscript
1. The concept of biphasic sleep goes back a long way - even to Medieval Britain where historical manuscripts reference a “first” and “second” sleep
2. The introduction of the BST time zone was done to conserve energy (and other reasons). It just shows that we have changed our routines to adapt to external factors before!