Skiing, 8 major ski areas in the world join forces for sustainable snow tourism. There's Plan de Corones

An international alliance for sustainable ski tourism was announced today. It involves eight resorts in the Alps, Fennoscandia and New Zealand, for a total quantifiable in “over 800 ski lifts and 25 million ski days (per year)”.

The signatories have announced that they want to pool their "resources and expertise" in order to reduce CO2 emissions and promote "sustainable tourism" in the era of climate change. The alliance, called "Global Sustainability Ski Alliance", brings together eight world-class ski resort managers. The signatories are the French La Compagnie des Alpes (Les Arcs, Tignes, Val d'Isère, Méribel among others), the Austrian KitzSki (Kitzbühel), the Italian Kronplatz (Plan de Corones), the Swiss Laax, the Finnish Levi Ski Resorts, the New Zealander NZSki (three facilities in the hills of the New Zealand outdoor capitals, Queenstown and Christchurch, the German Oberstdorf Kleinwalsertal Bergbahnen and the Swedish-Norwegian SkiStar (six resorts between the two Scandinavian countries, including the Swedish Åre).

The alliance is billed as "the first initiative of its kind in the ski industry." The Global Sustainability Ski Alliance "aims to embody actions for sustainable tourism in the era of climate change." The companies that join the alliance "have already implemented individual sustainable development initiatives in recent years" and "will now pool their expertise."

Initiatives include working with suppliers to help them develop low-carbon innovations, boosting electrification through the use of renewable energy, and so on. The group is committed to "share knowledge in a coordinated way, set joint priorities for action, and collaborate technically."

Ski resorts around the world are increasingly faced with challenges related to global warming, lack of snow, shorter seasons and the economic consequences for their regions that depend on winter tourism. Small and medium-sized mountain resorts are particularly affected by the lack of snow. In autumn 2024, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (the world governing body for skiing) sounded the alarm: climate change poses an "existential threat" to winter sports. To address this situation, it announced that it has joined forces with the United Nations Meteorological Organization (WMO) to benefit from its expertise.