In case you haven’t heard, Vail Resorts recently announced it’s going to purchase wind power credits equal to 100% of its annual energy use, making it the second-largest corporate buyer of wind power credits in the US (after Whole Foods Market).
According to Vail, the decision reflects a growing concern about global warming among U.S. ski resorts. They’re not the first ski resort to do this: Aspen already offsets all its electricity with 21,000 megawatt hours of wind power credits.
Vail Resorts estimates that the 152,000 megawatt hours of wind energy credits it’ll buy are equal to eliminating 211 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year — the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars off the road. Companywide, Vail Resorts uses about the same electricity as about 14,000 homes. It operates the Keystone, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek and Vail ski resorts in Colorado, Heavenly Mountain ski resort near Lake Tahoe, the Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming, and other resort hotels from California to Vermont.
To anyone concerned with global warming (and I know all of you are), this is great news. Let’s hope other ski areas take note and follow suit.
Two ski poles up for Vail! (And Aspen, too!)
