Watchdog Group Releases Enviro Scorecard for Ski Resorts

By Bob Berwyn, 12-03-07

	Caption: Keystone Ski Area, in Summit County, Colorado, placed in the middle of the pack in the most recent environmental scorecard with a "C" grade.

The latest environmental ranking of ski areas by a watchdog group suggests that several resorts around the West have dramatically changed their environmental policies for the better. The latest Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition (SACC) environmental scorecard shows that Telluride, Mammoth, Park City and Squaw Valley all upped their grades considerably.

According to the scorecard, three resorts run by the Aspen Skiing Company are still the greenest by far, but Telluride, Wolf Creek and New Mexico’s Taos Ski Valley are not far behind. At the bottom end of the scale with failing grades are Breckenridge and Copper Mountain. Both were marked way down for seeking expansions into undisturbed National Forest roadless areas, and for pursuing large-scale base area development plans.

“Times have changed,” said SACC research director Ben Doon. “For example, in recent years, Telluride has limited its terrain expansions to areas that are only accessible by hiking. They’ve also started using renewable biodiesel fuel and solar panels, and they’ve undertaken an extensive energy retrofit program to update inefficient, older facilities,” Doon said.

Doon said the story is similar in Mammoth, Park City and Squaw Valley, where the resorts have stopped environmentally damaging terrain expansions and launched new resource conservation programs and policies.

The ski industry and the environmental community have been at odds over the scorecard since it was first released eight years ago. Some industry officials have challenged the validity of the rankings, claiming that the SACC (comprised of several regional conservation groups) is biased.

The environmental scores are based on a combination of data from government agency records, an annual survey and from the resorts themselves. The scorecard considers factors like recycling programs and participation in renewable energy programs, along with plans for development and expansion both on public and private lands.

The industry launched its own environmental initiative, the Sustainable Slopes charter, around the same time the scorecard made it debut. The charter outlines a set of environmental goals but does not go very far toward holding resorts accountable to actually meeting the goals. As a result, some critics dismissed the charter as a greenwash.

One environmental topic that does seem to be gaining more attention from the ski industry is global warming. That’s also a big change from just a few years ago, when many executives with major resort companies were among the biggest climate change skeptics.

But a recent forum in Summit County showed that some of the major players in Colorado are sitting up and taking notice of potential global warming impacts. Executives from several different areas outlined an industry response, touting their participation in renewable energy credit programs and other green initiatives.