Finally snow is covering everything and the sun is shining again – the perfect weather for a skiing or snowboarding trip to the mountains! But can these popular winter sports even be done in a sustainable manner? We will reveal everything you have to know about it in the following:

Impacts on our environment

In order to create enough space for the ski slopes, necessarily more and more mountain forests have to be cleared, which is not only causing damage to our climate but also deprives the domestic animals of their biosphere. Moreover, snow guns have to be deployed very often due to climate change. However, they require copious quantities of power and water. For covering this enormous consumption, extra impounding reservoirs have to be laid out near the skiing region and many alpine rivers run up to 70 percent less water by now because of that. Apart from that the snow guns cause a lot of noise even at night, wherefore the mountain animals feel endangered and cannot live there anymore. In addition to that, artificial snow is much more dense and less oxygen permeable as its natural equivalent, wherefore the vegetation withers underneath in the long run. Also the ski lifts burn up power and the transport of food and drinks to the alpine chalets is anything but sustainable. Not to mention the car caravans which accumulate before the skiing area and the ski gear of plastic. Hence, the question inevitably arises: can winter sports even be done in a sustainable manner?

Sustainable solution approaches

Unfortunately, winter sports will probably never become completely sustainable. Who does not want to give it up nonetheless, can at least consider a few factors in order not to cause quite so much damage to nature. For example, it is necessary to schedule one’s skiing holiday in the winter months and not around Easter when the snow is already melting again. The journey with the train is additionally much more environmentally friendly and normally also more relaxed than the car trip. You can even take care of travelling to skiing areas which generate green electricity and which do not use snow guns. Alpine Pearls, for instance, has listed a few travel destinations which practise sustainable tourism and which guarantee full mobility to their guests even without their own car. In addition to that, you can prepare your own lunch and bring it to the mountain and resort to sustainably produced ski gear. PYUA, for example, takes care of an energy-saving manufacturing of functional clothing suitable for winter sports, Silbaerg fabricates snowboards ressource-sparingly and MELT has developed hiqh quality skis which are sustainably produced and Europe and which do not have to be waxed anymore.