Aspen Skiing Co. sends a strong message to critics of its actions on climate change

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Aspen Skiing Co. converts its fleet of snow groomers to high output models from Prinoth. Seventeen of the 29 snowmobiles in its fleet exceed the highest standards in the United States for pollution control ASC / courtesy photo

Aspen Skiing Co. reduced the amount of carbon emissions it produced in 2020 from the previous two years, but the company’s environmental guru is not celebrating the accomplishment.

Auden Schendler, Skico’s senior vice president for sustainability and community engagement, said reducing the carbon footprint is a laudable goal, but one that no Skico or any other company should be focusing on.

Instead, he believes companies should prioritize political action to influence government policies on global warming issues and to get energy providers to commit to increasing renewable energy sources. .

Schendler said sustainability reports like the one Skico produces on a regular basis are usually just a diversion from the bigger problem. Skico has tried to shake things up with their report this year. He calls out the oil and gas industry for its role in global warming and features a section called “Hypocrites Unite! “

“The idea that a company like ours that has a large carbon footprint and operates luxury hotels cannot speak out on the climate is precisely what the fossil fuel industry wants the public to believe,” says the sustainable development report. “And they succeeded. The main attack we get when we speak out: you are hypocrites. You too are consuming energy.

In an interview this week, Schendler said that calling ski resort operators hypocrites and trying to shame them in specific actions is tantamount to “letting them totally get away with it.”

“The status quo is bankrupting us. – Aspen Skiing Co. 2021 Sustainability Report

“We could respond to this criticism with efficiency, renewable energy credits and carbon offsets and not changing any system – not changing our utilities and not changing our global systems,” Schendler said. “We call it that, saying if you want to attack a ski resort, ask them to do the things that will solve the climate problem, not pretend to solve it.”

He hopes to create unity within the wider environmental movement so that there is a cohesive approach to global warming rather than the divisions he says play into the hands of the oil and gas companies.

“Frankly, the environmental community has no idea what the climate is like, because they basically offer beach resorts that easy way out,” he continued. “It’s as easy as pie to buy cheap carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates and then they would say, ‘Oh, okay, I guess you’re not a hypocrite. “”

But there are “many documents” indicating that carbon offsets – actions such as planting trees to offset emissions – are unnecessary, according to Schendler. Carbon is always circulating in the air. Most of the electricity produced still comes from coal-fired power stations.

“We got past that,” Schendler said.

Skico’s 2021 sustainability report details its lobbying efforts and political climate activism. “The status quo is bankrupting us,” the report says.

Schendler points out that Skico’s work with Holy Cross Energy, a cooperative that is a major supplier of electricity to the Aspen and Vail regions, is moving away from the status quo. Skico has been working since 2008 to elect candidates to the board of directors who support renewable energy initiatives.

Skico has also partnered with the utility on renewable energy projects, such as capturing methane from a former coal mine near Paonia, creating energy and feeding it to the grid. Sainte-Croix was at 44% renewable energy at the start of 2021 and rose to 49% in November. Its goal is to reach 100% by 2030.

Skico replaced all of the bulbs in its facilities with LEDs, achieved LEED environmental certification for seven buildings it constructed, and redeveloped older buildings to make them more energy efficient.

“We’ve done some good things on the pitch, but it’s just not enough,” said Schendler. “The only thing that really mattered was that our utility moved away from coal. “

This has reduced Skico’s carbon footprint and will continue to do so.

Skico produced 24,686 tonnes of CO2 in 2020, in part because the ski season was cut short by about a month during the lockdown at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Emissions were lower than the 25,557 tonnes produced by the company in 2019 and 24,593 tonnes in 2018.

In 2020, almost 48% of Skico’s carbon emissions came from the consumption of electricity and 36% from the combustion of natural gas. However, as electricity consumption increases each year, the amount of carbon emitted by electricity decreases as Sainte-Croix increases its renewable energy sources.

Over time, Schendler hopes to significantly reduce Skico’s natural gas consumption.

“We are going to switch to electrification,” he said. “When you heat buildings with natural gas, like we do, they emit CO2 throughout their life cycle. But if you switch to electricity, they will get greener and greener every year. “

While Schendler is a proponent of political action – lobbying in Washington, joining litigation to force policy change, organizing events to engage the public – he is still proud of Skico’s achievements in reducing his carbon footprint.

For example, Skico spent $ 30,000 to install an electric pizza oven at the Merry-Go-Round restaurant in Aspen Highlands for this season. He spent an additional $ 20,000 changing the wiring in the building to handle the load.

On another front, the company is converting its fleet of snowmobiles for grooming and other tasks into high efficiency models. In the United States, the highest level of pollution control for equipment using diesel fuel is Level IV. But 17 of Skico’s 29 Prinoth snowmobiles achieve Level V, a European standard that exceeds America’s highest level of efficiency. Next ski season, 25 of the snowcats will be in the high efficiency category, according to Skico’s sustainability report.

Even with such advances, Aspen as a community and Skico as the ski resort operator will still face skepticism on the environmental front due to the mighty mansions that dominate the city and the private jets stacked at the airport.

Schendler said the skepticism was misplaced.

“It is not Aspen’s role to self-flog himself,” he said. “We have private jets. It’s part of the global economy.

“It’s Aspen’s role to fix the whole enchilada because we potentially have the power to do it,” he said. “So if we want to have private jets and (commercial) jets, we have to push for the big systemic solution – which would be a carbon tax, it would be more of regulating airline pollution,” he continued.

“You choose your political path, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, choose it. We have to put our finger on that scale and if we don’t, then all the criticisms are valid. “

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