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Business English: Going green on the white stuff

With ski slopes threatened by global warming, resorts are exploring their own ways to counter climate change. Aspen in Colorade, US, is using snow cats fuelled with biodiesel and lifts operated entirely on wind power. von Nick Edwards

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Going green on the white stuff

Last month, officials of the skiing World Cup took the unprecedented step of cancelling the competition's first two stages at Soelden in Austria owing to a lack of snow on the glacier. It was one of a growing number of problems faced by the winter sports industry that many believe are the result of climate change. Many European resorts have closed their glaciers for summer skiing in recent years and low resorts across North America and Europe are facing increasing difficulties securing finance and insurance for upcoming seasons. However, with climate change becoming regarded as a direct economic threat to the industry, there is a growing movement among skiing resorts to provide sustainable solutions to the problem. Aspen in Colorado, US, normally seen as a playground for the rich and powerful, may seem an unlikely hotbed of environmentally aware activity, but the resort's managers believe they have no choice. "In a moderate case scenario, which includes emissions reduction by 2050 skiing in Aspen will be severely hampered, perhaps even gone," says Pat O'Donnell, chief executive of the Aspen Skiing Company. "I won't even discuss what happens under a ‘business as usual strategy'." Among the green projects Aspen is therefore undertaking, the resort's snow cats are now fuelled with biodiesel, its "Cirque" lift operates entirely on wind power and its highland patrol headquarters has a 2.3 kilowatt solar power system. Aspen was the first resort to join the Chicago Climate Exchange policy, binding itself to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It was also the first resort to offset 100 per cent of its electricity use by purchasing renewable energy certificates from wind farms. While there is debate about how effective such individual practices are in reducing environmental damage, there is a shared commitment among resorts to achieve a fundamental shift in how the mountain sport industry does business. Some green-thinking resorts believe legislation would ultimately be the most effective way of achieving the kind of emission reductions they hope for to protect their industry. This is why Aspen has filed a brief to the US Supreme Court in support of 12 states, various utilities companies and conservation groups that are suing the Environmental Protection Agency to require it to regulate CO2as a pollutant. "It's the biggest thing we've done for the environment," says Auden Schendler, of the Aspen Skiing Company. He says the paradox of being an environmentalist and working in tourism can be reconciled. "The solution is (...) to make capitalism radically more efficient and less damaging to the environment. The corporate sector is part of the solution." He highlights the potential for green practices to create business opportunities. "The biodiesel market in Amercia is exploding, and you can't get hold of windmills now, even if you want them." Meanwhile, as some ski resorts try to push the frontiers of sustainable business, many remain on the front line of the threat. Juerg Trueb, managing director of environmental and commodity markets at Swiss Re, says: "We expect increasing demands from low resorts to fund the infrastructure required to guarantee future skiing days, such as artificial snow-making machines."

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