‘The European ski industry has made progress: measures range from powering on renewable energy to supporting local Alpine farmers, to the rise of hotels that have an eco-conscious ethos. And skiers can also make a difference when it comes to limiting their personal carbon impact’
This article was taken from the December 2024 issue of Food and Travel. To subscribe today, click here.
The ski season is one of the joys of winter and early spring, so how can we continue to enjoy family holidays to the slopes while staying mindful to our environmental impact, and where can we find options that offer a lower carbon footprint?
Seeking out a hotel that runs on renewable power is one way to bring down the carbon bill of a ski holiday.
Leitlhof hotel leitlhof.com in the Italian Dolomites is one of a plethora of hotels across the Alps that are looking to burnish their low-carbon credentials. The Leitlhof has overhauled its operations to focus on sustainability by building its own combined heat and power plant. Fed by a sustainable timber source, which powers the hotel, it estimates carbon emissions per guest per night are now as low as 12.2kg (a carbon footprint equivalent to 244 cups of coffee).
In Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, Trattlerhof hotel trattlerhof.at is backed by its own hydropower plant, which generates more energy than the hotel uses. It estimates each guest can save up to 58kg per night in carbon emissions when bunking down at its abode – meaning over a week each guest could save an impressive 406kg of CO2 (or the equivalent of a return flight from London to Klagenfurt, according to carbonfootprint.com).
Belvedere hotel in Switzerland’s Grindelwald uses a heat recovery system to warm its swimming pools, and has installed a heat pump for both outdoor and indoor pools. The Belvedere also taps into Grindelwald’s own wood-fired heat and power co-generation plant, which runs on waste from sawmills and construction sites and storm-felled wood. belvedere-grindelwald.ch
Keeping the power theme flowing, ZillergrundRock Luxury Mountain Resort zillergrund.at in Mayrhofen, Austria, also zeroes in on its carbon emissions from energy: hydropower from the Ziller river supplies the entire hotel’s energy needs. Constructed from regional building materials, it has made environmental advances on the food front too, scooping awards for its commitment to produce from the surrounding valleys.
Finding an alternative to flying to your ski destination will certainly reduce your carbon footprint, but it’s easy to be put off by ticket prices for Eurostar’s special ‘ski train’ eurostar.com that connects London to Bourg-St-Maurice via Lille; a family of four can spend between £1,100 and £1,500 for a return trip. It isn’t the only rail option, though, as long as you plan ahead.
For destinations in France or Switzerland, consider going via Paris. Eurostar offer advance fares for as little as £35 one way and hold flash sales around three times a year. From Gare de Lyon, advance tickets to Grenoble – which connects to resorts such as Les Deux Alps or Alpe d’Huez – can be as cheap as £17 one way. Prices are similar for Bourg St Maurice or Geneva, giving access to the French and Swiss Alps without having to factor in extra costs for luggage.
For resorts in Italy and Austria, the overnight train comes into its own. During February and March, European Sleeper europeansleeper.eu run a Belgium to Italy overnight service from £99 one way (including couchette), with a 7pm departure from Brussels. The train connects with Innsbruck and the Italian town of Bolzano before trundling off to Venice. From Innsbruck, skiers can access Tirolean resorts such as Kitzbühel, Ischgl and Mayrhofen. An alternative is to go via Munich (also served by the overnight route) and head from there to Zurich and on to the Swiss resorts of Davos Klosters (3h 20 mins by train), or Flims Laax (2h 30 mins).
Globally, flights account for around 2 per cent of carbon emissions, but the built environment, which includes construction, can be responsible for as much as 37 per cent of global annual carbon consumption, so finding genuinely low-carbon accommodation is an important step towards meeting net zero standards.
The spa hotel Holzhotel Forsthofalm forsthofalm.com in Leogang, Austria, is a seven-storey wooden hotel built without the use of metal or glue, with the building held together by more than 200,000 wooden pegs. The construction method is known as dowel laminated timber and aims to replace the concrete and steel in building projects. Not resting on its laurels, the hotel is also powered by its own hydropower source.
Another hotel that has aimed to lower its embodied carbon is Hotel de Len (the name derives from the Latin term for wood) hoteldelen.it in the Dolomites. Opened in the centre of Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2022, the hotel was built to the highest energy efficiency standards with large sections of timber, either reused or recovered from other local projects.
Built using recycled glass and wood, Au Charmant Petit Lac charmantpetitlac.com in Champoluc, Italy, has also taken steps to reduce water use; a solar thermal system saves 68 tons of CO2 annually; and it adheres to a traditional local practice whereby people use only dead wood from local forests in their fireplaces.
Hydropower may make up the lion’s share of sustainable energy in the Alps but it isn’t the only source of renewable energy. Bad Gastein, in Austria’s Hohe Tauern mountains, has used geothermal energy to help heat homes for over 100 years. In nearby Bad Hofgastein, Gastein Thermenhotels thermenhotels-gastein.com makes use of solar in the summer, and thermal heat from water is collected in retention basins to generate heat for the hotels. Indeed, promising ‘not a drop’ of the thermal water it uses is wasted, Thermenhotels’ Alpentherme is set to become one of the first zero-emissions spas in Austria. Water emerges from the Alps at Bad Gastein at 47C and, by adapting the hydraulics for the spa and enlarging the heating coils that were fed by the thermal springs, they save up to 370 tons of CO2 per year, the equivalent of 1,000 return flights from London to Salzburg. They also installed 975 solar panels on the roof of the Alpentherme in 2023 to help generate 400kw of power, which in summer is fed into the grid.
Other destinations taking advantage of thermal waters include Obereggen in the Dolomites, where the Oberholz mountain hut oberholz.com – at 2,096m above sea level – is geothermally powered.
For the adventurous sustainable skier, Iceland’s Kerlingarfjöll is possibly one of the more unusual spots for low-carbon activities. There are no ski lifts to carry you aloft – just open terrain, hot mud pools and cabins powered by geothermal energy. Only two styles of skiing work here: backcountry or cross country; but your holiday is guaranteed to be unforgettable.
Trains, hotels and ski lifts are one thing, but can an entire resort go carbon neutral? This was the challenge set by Davos in 2021 to
make the town Switzerland’s first climate-neutral holiday resort by
the end of the decade. Alongside reducing its emissions, Davos has
invested in carbon offset projects and partnered with climate
organisation Myclimate to pursue a net zero strategy. Visitors can make a voluntary donation, which is matched by the local community and used to offset carbon emissions on local and global projects. CO2 reduction measures already in place include replacing the staff accommodation heating system in two buildings with geothermal energy, procuring from local suppliers and introducing an electric bus. Fellow Swiss resorts Mürren and Saas-Fee, and Werfenwen and Oberlech inAustria are among those where cars are banned, with alternative optionsranging from electric taxis to mountain railways. Over in the French town of Serre Chevalier – awarded Green Globe certification – they’ve gone big on solar power: 1,400 panels have been installed alongside a plethora of micro-wind turbines. Plus, the piste groomers are powered by waste vegetable oil, and the resort has a roadmap to reduce its carbon footprint by 50 per cent by 2030.
When it comes to dining, it makes sense to pick resorts that rely on local suppliers and promote sustainable farming practices.
The Swiss resort of Verbier has taken the concept of agritourism to the next level. From launching an annual pan-Alpine food festival for producers, to building a specialist beekeeping facility to highlight the threat to bees, their aim is to establish sustainable agritourism as a mainstay alongside winter sports in the Val de Bagnes.
On a smaller but no less impressive scale, individual hotels are also working hard to minimise the impact on the planet of their culinary exploits. In Austria, Tirolean Falkensteiner Hotel Kronplatz falkensteiner.com has committed to using local produce and a slow-food menu at its 7Summit restaurant; while Hotel Edelweiss & Gurgl in Obergurgl edelweiss-gurgl.com has launched its own vegan ski-fit menu for those who want more planet-friendly, plant-forward options.
Nothing tops serving food from your own farm, however. Fourth-generation-run Chez Pépé Nicolas is located amid mountain pastures between Les Menuires and Val Thorens in the heart of Les Trois Vallées ski area. gb.chezpepenicolas.com
Lift companies across the Alps have begun reworking their operations to ensure lifts are more efficient and less dependant on diesel engines. The main advantage resorts have is ample amounts of hydropower.
The grand old dame of the French Alps, Val d’Isère, has been running on 100 per cent renewable energy since 2012 and St Anton in Austria has relied on green electricity since 2006. Val d’Isère has also invested in electric buses since 2022 as well as powering snow groomers on biofuel. They’re not alone; Verbier’s ski company Téléverbier derives 90 per cent of its power from hydroelectric sources and a further 6 per cent from solar and wind, with the final 4 per cent coming from diesel generators.
Verbier is working with the Swiss Federal Office of Energy to upgrade ski lifts to reduce the need for diesel generators. It has already slowed speeds on some lifts to save on energy, and if lift attendants leave the door to their mountain cabins open, the heating is turned off.
Other resorts to include hydro power include Austria’s Ischgl, which since 2021 has operated all cable cars, chairlifts, restaurants and snow systems on renewable energy. And, by using solar and heat recovery systems, they say 80,000 litres of heating oil are saved a year - the equivalent of 244 tons of CO2.
Climate change is expected to see the snowline in the Alps rise in the coming decades, which will mean a smaller area of the mountain range is covered in snow. This, in turn, means over the spring there is less snow to melt slowly into water and feed rivers. Managing water use – including the snow on pistes – is therefore essential. Some resorts, such as Serre Chevalier in France, are employing drones to scan the mountains and work out where artificial snow is needed to save on snow cannon use.
The Austrian resort of SkiWelt has installed a GPS-controlled slope management system for preparing its pistes, measuring the ski slopes to the centimetre during the summer months, which allows for better snow management and lower energy use. Other resorts have adopted a term known as snow farming to build up banks of snow. Les Deux Alpes maintains year-round skiing due to the glacier that straddles the mountain at 3,400m up. The resort heaps snow into piles at the high altitudes during peak winter months and uses the snow stockpile to maintain the pistes during the warmer months, reducing the need for snow cannons. Zermatt in Switzerland also piles high-altitude snow on the 3,800m-high plateau near the Klein Matterhorn. Since the piles have a larger mass, they melt more slowly.
Sustainably-minded hotels are also finding ever more ingenious ways to reduce water use: the Rocks Resort rocksresort.com in Laax, Switzerland, for instance, have replaced their bathroom flush with a dry system.
For fliers, shifting an entire extra suitcase of jackets and salopettes isn’t just a pain, but adds to the weight and thus the carbon cost of any flight. But although equipment hire is common, renting ski clothing hasn’t really been possible until recently. It can be particularly useful for families who have to buy outfits every couple of years for growing kids.
In 2020, the bright sparks at Swiss firm Cirkel Supply cirkelsupply.com realised offering in-resort clothing hire wasn’t just a good business idea, but it also helped promote the circular economy and the planet – renting clothes for your ski trip breaks the familiar ‘take, make, dispose’ method. The Verbier-based company deliver ski clothes for children and adults to hotels in Swiss resorts such as Andermatt, Crans-Montana, Saas Fee, St Moritz and Verbier. It saves hassle as well: when you leave, you just put your gear in a bag for them to professionally clean. A five-day rental of a Patagonia ski jacket retailing at around £390 costs around £75. Considering it can cost up to £60 per item of hold-luggage per flight, it’s easy to justify.
Ski equipment is less easy to recycle than clothes – 1,500 tons of skis are disposed of each year in France alone. But this could all change with the invention by French firm ADN Skis of a resin that can be dissolved in acetic acid. The wonder resin means the wood and metal within the skis can finally be recycled, and the firm aim to licence the technology to ski manufacturers globally.
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