Skiing green with SkiGreen tags.

[ski diva]

Anyone here know about SkiGreen? It's a partnership between the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) and leaders in the winter sports industry to build support for non-polluting renewable sources of energy (such as wind and solar energy).

Participating ski areas sell SkiGreen tags along with their daily or season passes, and the proceeds are used to help BEF support renewable energy. According to the foundation, each tag represents 100 kilowatt-hours of wind power entering the energy grid and creates a savings of 140 pounds of air emissions - roughly the same amount caused by driving 150 miles in a vehicle getting approximately 21 MPG. You can find out more, and about which ski areas participate, here.

I've never encountered this, so I'm wondering if anyone else here has. Seems like a good idea; I wonder if it'll continue in the coming season.

 

[RachelV]

Yeah, when I bought my ticket at alta this past season (during diva week!) they asked me if I wanted to pay an extra $1 or something to make it green. Personally I wish they wouldn't ask and just make the passes $1 more expensive -- it always makes me cranky when people ask me to pay extra for things for some reason. I think it's a great idea, though.

 

[Robyn]

I haven't bought a Green Tag because all of the ski areas that I ski at are already 100% Wind Powered and they've never asked specifically for more money for it. Although, I'm sure the cost is built into passes/tickets. But, I've always appreciated that the electricity that I use during the season to get me up the mountain is wind powered so if I were skiing at a resort that had this option I'm sure I'd take part.

 

[Telluride Ski Babe]

Telluride participates, although you'd be hard pressed to know it. The only indication I've seen is the signs on lift 5 saying the power for the lift is offset 100% with wind energy credits. Of course, I don't go to the window for tickets, so I'm not sure about buying a SkiGreen pass. I don't remember seeing them on the mountain last year, but I could be wrong.

Given the energy consumption of our mountain I'm certainly all for trying to make it as green as possible. We are now using (mostly) compostable "throw-aways", but I'd like to see more invested in this area. We're privately owned, so it's harder to make an impact because it completely depends on the owner (Chuck Horning) to want to make a difference. But, if there were ever a community that demanded it, it would be Telluride.

 

[jaydog]

They have them at my home hill, and are pretty aggressive about promoting them. I bought one once, mostly to get the cool sticker that comes with it.