Welcome
to the 2011 Ski Area
Report Card.
updated
11/7/2011
Slow Economy a Double Edged Sword:
Ski Area Environmental Report Card shows little
investment in ski area expansion or sustainable practices
Ski
resorts across the west for the first time in five years did not significantly
increase their activities related to renewable energy and energy efficiency
according to the 2011 Ski Area Environmental Report Card. The report also found that ski resorts did
very little degrading activity during the same period.
Ski
Area Citizens Coalition Planning more Environmental Scrutiny of Resort Summer
Activities for 2012/2013
The Ski
Area Citizens Coalition also announced today that, for the next season
2012-2013 Report Card, they would be scrutinizing summer activity expansion at
ski resorts more closely. The Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act
was just signed into national law making it easier for ski resorts that are
wholly or partially located on federal land to get special permits to allow activities
other than Nordic or alpine skiing. Activities could include zip lines, frisbee golf, and advanced
mountain biking.
Click
here for the 2011 National press release
Click
here for the 2011 California press release
Click
here for the 2011 Colorado press release
The Report Card got a makeover in 2010
Instead of focusing on one general score, the scorecard, which we now refer to
as the report card, has been broken down into four individual
categories and an overall score. The four new categories are:
- Habitat
Protection
- Protecting
Watersheds
- Addressing
Global Climate Change
- Environmental
Practices and Policies.
The new categories help grade more accurately the environmental
impacts of ski area operations.
About the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition
The Ski Area Citizens' Coalition works to promote environmental
stewardship. By evaluating ski area responsiveness to the needs of
environmental stewardship, local communities, and the recreational public in a
manner that is consistent to changing economic and environmental policies, we
can potentially influence current business practices and trends to be
increasingly more eco-friendly.
Staff and Volunteers and of SACC are skiers themselves, and
recognize skiing and mountain recreations as a valid and great use of public
lands. The experiences, enjoyment, and memories that are created through the
use of public lands cannot be monetarily measured; they are invaluable.
As Theodore Roosevelt noted, “To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to
skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness,
will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity
which we thought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”
This year we enlisted help from Ordell Platero a student from Fort Lewis College a snowboarder and
an exceptional researcher.
Ski Area Report Card Highlighted in Academic Studies
George Washington University Professor Jorge Rivera and University
of Denver Professor Peter de Leon published a study of ski industry
environmental impacts and the National Ski Area Association’s Sustainable
Slopes program in the Policy Studies Journal (Vol. 32, No. 3,
2004) entitled “Is Greener Whiter? Voluntary Environmental
Performance of Western Ski Areas.”
The study validated many issues that the
conservation community has had of the ski industry’s voluntary environmental
program, and confirmed that the Ski Area
Environmental Report Card is an accurate and useful third-party tool to gauge
ski resorts’ environmental policies and management. A follow up study published
in 2006 titled "Is Greener Whiter Yet?
The Sustainable Slopes Program after Five Years"
found similar results.
