Paradoxically, ski resorts have been a major contributor to the environmental problems that threaten them today, with snow cannons sucking up water resources, chair lifts consuming energy, and vast ski slopes cutting down trees and displacing snow. wildlife. Then there’s the issue of skiers themselves: most of skiing’s carbon footprint comes from accommodation and the cars and planes used to get to resorts.
As national ski resorts take stock of their bleak future, more and more are beginning to make an effort to offset their effects on the environment. We spoke to the executives of four very different resorts to learn more about some of the measures they are putting in place to protect both the environment and their sport.
Executives at Aspen Skiing Company in Colorado believe in thinking beyond the confines of Aspen Snowmass, four resorts that together draw about 1.5 million visitors a year. “You can’t really make change from within the system,” says Auden Schendler, climate activist, author of “Getting Green Done” and senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company (ASC). “Our obligation to Aspen – or any other entity with power – is to exercise that power to fix the system.” As an example, the ski company got involved in early 2021 when the Biden administration halted new oil and gas leases on public lands, triggering lawsuits from the state of Wyoming and an organization. of the fossil fuel industry called Western Energy Alliance. ASC and its legal team have joined a range of partners to support the president’s position.
Daniel Scott, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada who specializes in climate change, agrees that politics is the biggest step resorts can take towards change. “The systemic change necessary for a deep decarbonization of the U.S. and global economy requires policy changes at all levels of government, but especially national governments. [Aspen’s] advocacy strategy attempts to accelerate climate action where it is needed most.
But it’s not just politics. After Aspen became the first in the industry to build a solar array in 2004, its executives realized the system couldn’t generate enough power for Aspen’s four ski mountains. So in 2012, they invested more than $5.3 million to build a three-megawatt power plant at the Elk Creek mine in Somerset, a small town about two hours away. After partnering with local energy companies, they were able to use this facility to convert the methane escaping from the coal-fired plant into electricity for the station. According to a 2021 report by ASC, the mine generates about enough baseload electricity per year to power Aspen Snowmass’ four ski runs for a year, including hotels and restaurants. Additionally, it prevents the release of methane into the environment, where it would become a major contributor to climate change. “The key to change is solving multiple problems with one solution,” says Schendler.
Management at Taos Ski Valley, a 1,300-acre resort in New Mexico, wants to do more than just reduce the resort’s carbon footprint. “We consider everything before making any changes: the environment, sustainability and social responsibility are all taken into account,” says David Norden, its managing director. In 2017, Taos became the first ski resort in the world to be designated a B Corp., a company whose certification requires it to meet a high social and environmental standard.
Part of that responsibility is to implement changes beyond the boundaries of the ski runs, and Taos does this as a charter signatory to the Nature Conservancy’s Rio Grande Water Fund (RGWF), created after the fire. of Las Conchas in 2011 that burned tens of thousands of forests. acres in northern New Mexico. Thunderstorms after the fire caused ash and debris to flow into the Rio Grande, ultimately contaminating water supplies in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The RGWF’s goal is to improve the health of 600,000 acres of forest upstream to ensure clean water for future generations downstream. For its part, Taos selectively thins the forest, on its private lands and on plots it leases to the US Forest Service, as part of the RGWF strategy.
Taos also focuses on day-to-day operations. The station has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030, and to do so it has partnered with a local electric cooperative which plans to be 100% solar by the end of this year. But Scott notes that coal is still the primary energy source for New Mexico’s grid, so the benefit of Taos going solar is mixed. The station has also invested in a BioCoTech composter that diverts food waste from landfills, as well as associated methane gas from rotting food.
Berkshire East Hill Station
According to marketing manager Nathan Marr, Berkshire East in Massachusetts is the only ski resort in the world to generate 100% of its electricity from on-site renewable energy sources. Marr said the mountain commissioned a 277-foot-tall wind turbine in January 2011 that produced 900 kilowatt hours (kWhrs) of power. Soon after, the station added a 10-acre field filled with 1,800 solar panels that produced an additional 500 kWh. The combined 1,400 kWh is enough to power the whole complex, but only because, as Marr notes, it’s a small complex of about 200 acres. “We only have three main chairlifts, a few magic carpets, and several pavilions and buildings that all require power,” says Marr. “We don’t have a huge, huge demand for electricity like the big resorts.”
Small or not, it matters. “It’s as sustainable as possible in terms of on-site actions to reduce emissions, and the turbine also feeds clean energy to the grid year-round,” says Scott.
Berkshire East often generates more power than the resort needs, especially in the summer when the snow guns are not working. When this happens, the excess energy is routed to the grid for use by others in the area. In addition to its renewable energy sources, the station also uses wood cut from the property to heat the buildings, further reducing its reliance on fuel oil or propane.
Snowmaking is still a major resource in the ski industry, and Berkshire East is no different. However, the resort has added a snowmaking pool at the top of the mountain, in addition to the original one at the base. “Pumping water from the base to the top of the mountain to make snow, against gravity, took a lot of energy,” says Marr. “When we added the pond to the top of the mountain, we use gravity and use much smaller pumps, which requires much less energy.”
If you want to see sustainable skiing from a different perspective, consider Bluebird Backcountry, which welcomed around 6,200 visitors during its 2020-2021 season. A ski resort designed for teaching backcountry skiing, this Colorado resort doesn’t require a lot of resources because, as it puts it, it’s “human-powered.” All skiers are required to wear the traditional backcountry safety equipment – avalanche beacon, shovel and probe – to traverse the natural, ungroomed terrain which is regularly mitigated by the highly trained patrol team of the avalanche risk.
There are no chairlifts; all skiers earn their turn by skiing uphill. There are no accommodations or lodgings or restaurants; all the structures at the base are built with removable tents which the resort takes down in April. There is no snowmaking; skiers have to wait for Mother Nature to rid herself of the powder. And as for the electricity for the tents? “When we’re in season, we use solar panels from Elevated Independent Energy in Boulder,” says Melissa Baker, partnerships manager at Bluebird.
And when the ski season ends in April, there is nothing left of Bluebird except acres of pasture returned to cattle.
Rochfort is a Colorado-based writer. You can find it on Twitter and instagram: @HeatherRochfort.
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