Grand Targhee

Grand Targhee: green factor

• Introduction to green factor assessments
• Environmental overview of resorts
• Environmental initiatives

Major Initiatives

Grand Targhee Resort (GTR) is committed to the community, the environment, and the future. The Resort strives to be responsible to the local and global communities of people and nature that make it so unique. Just as these communities help the Resort thrive, GTR recognizes the need and responsibility to play an active role in ensuring their long term health and vitality.

To that end, Management and Employees are committed to a process of continual learning and improvement in pursuit of fiscally attainable and truly sustainable operations. Specifically, GTR is working in the following areas to balance social, economic, and environmental priorities.

• Facilities Management
• Renewable Energy
• Intelligent Transportation
• Preferred Purchasing
• Waste Management
• Sustainable Ecosystems
• Community Engagement

In addition to our improvements to onsite resort operations, GTR is fully committed to working with local governments and organizations to build capacity for regional sustainability.

GTR understands there is no social justice without economic opportunity; no economic opportunity without a healthy environment; and neither economic opportunity nor healthy environment without a strong community fabric. Through imagination, experimentation, and implementation, GTR hopes to be a participant in, and leader towards, the constantly moving target of sustainability.

GTR hired a full-time, year-round Director of Sustainable Operations responsible for helping the Resort realize its vision for a sustainable future. This person is a member of the management team and is involved in all decision-making processes. The Resort, with the help of its Sustainability Director, is striving to create a culture where every decision that every employee makes is evaluated based on the principles of sustainability, where external costs are always considered, and creative thinking is embraced.

The Resort employs a full-time Naturalist who provides educational programming, staffs an on-site naturalist center, provides outreach to the community, and awards yearly grants through the Targhee Environmental Foundation. The Targhee Environmental Foundation was established by resort employees. Employee contributions to the Foundation are matched by Resort. Grand Targhee employees established the Foundation to provide support for environmental projects in Teton Valley. Last season we made $5,000 available for grants.

The Resort also realizes that if it is to truly be a leader for the western United States, it must be accountable for every action, impact, and decision made. Therefore, the Director of Sustainable Operations spent six months during 2007 working with each department at the Resort to create a matrix that identifies short and long term goals and projects, initiatives, deadlines, and resources to help meet the goals. This document is the Resort’s “green” bible. All projects- big and small- are identified and tracked through this document. It is updated on a regular basis. Short-term goals are under two years, and long-term goals are between two and five years. All managers and directors are accountable for the implementation of the projects identified in their matrix, and meet with the Sustainability Director every two weeks to report progress and discuss next steps. The goals are discussed at bi-monthly meetings among all leadership-level staff. This document will help the Resort plan for, implement, and track the progress of its sustainability initiatives.

Below is a summary of the progress of these initiatives from January 2007 to present:

1. Facilities Management
o Replaced 80% of the shower heads in its lodging units to low-flow.
o Replaced 100% of the water faucets with low-flow units.
o Installed waterless urinals in 20% of public bathrooms stalls.
o Replaced 10% of carpet in lodging units with recycled carpet.
o Tightened 75% of entranceways to reduce heating needs.
o Replaced two roofs on main lodges, cold roofs with significantly increased r-values.
o Replaced approximately 20% of base area patio wood with recycled wood.
o Replaced 100% of Resort’s lighting with CFL bulbs. This reduced our lighting energy use by at least 50%.
2. Renewable Energy
o Signed 3-year contract with Bonneville Environmental Foundation to purchase 10,500 Megawatt-hours of renewable energy credits to offset 100% of our energy use.
o Offset 4.8 Million Lbs. of CO2
3. Intelligent Transportation
o Established mass transportation shuttle system for Resort employees, summer youth camps and elderhostel programs. This shuttle system runs all day long, seven days a week from local communities to the Resort, and back.
o Creation of EPA Award-winning carpool program that pays employees to carpool and ride Resort mass transportation.
o Established front-row preferred parking program for guests that carpool.
o Established shuttle system from surrounding communities to Resort for all large events, such as music festivals and holidays.
o Reduced 2007 trips from nearest community by 25% and saved 50 tons of CO2.
4. Preferred Purchasing & Waste Management
o Replaced 90% of disposable flatware, condiments, and cups with reusables. Reduced Resort’s total waste stream by approximately 5%. Where operation was using disposables, all were made from bio-based, compostable PLA “plastics” made of corn-starch.
o Reduced its total waste stream by 4% from 2006 to 2007.
o GTR partnered with Fall River Electric to hold a Household Hazardous Waste collection day and collected 350G of liquid, flammable materials, 100LBS of solid hazardous and electronic waste, 10G of used motor oil and 2G of used anti-freeze. The Resort gave away 500 CFL bulbs to employees and collected approximately 20LBS of used CFLs for recycling.
o The Food & Beverage operation partnered with a local farm to collect food scraps for animal feed. The initiative reduced GTR’s food waste by 1,000 pounds.
o The Resort recycled approximately 200LBS of e-waste.
o GTRs disposable paper products are made from at least 50% post-consumer product, most using 100%. The Resort established a paper use tracking program by department. Each department is required to reduce its yearly use by 10%.
o GTR saved 26.22 tons of CO2 through reduction and recycling and 15% in fuel costs from reduced trips to the landfill.
5. Sustainable Ecosystems
o Through our Science and the Environment programs we promote good stewardship of our natural resources through partnerships and participation in the following research projects:
 Wolverine Monitoring Program (www.wolverinefoundation.org)
 Whitebark Pine Management program
 Douglas-Fir Pest Management
o Glade projects are managed to ensure preservation of biodiversity through appropriate vegetation spacing and age diversification. A chipper is used on-site to create ground cover and keep nutrients within the ecosystem.
o Projects saved approximately 50 tons of CO2 (40-year life cycle average for 40 acres of preservation)
Education and Outreach

The Resort’s main focus has been on education and outreach. GTR holds weekly presentations for guests on climate change and waste management and monthly presentations and workshops for employees, guests, and the community. GTR has established both a Resort and a community-wide “green team” that meets monthly.

GTR hosted its first “Summer of Sustainability” monthly workshop series for guests and the region- providing expert speakers on topics such as renewable energy, Biomimicry, climate change, and organic gardening. The series ended with a biodiesel-bus transported Sustainable Home Tour of Teton Valley and will be featured in the upcoming “Teton Homes Magazine.”

The Targhee Institute remains committed to their original vision offering educational programs for Elderhostels, Science Explorers and outreach programs in the schools. 14 week-long residential programs for Elderhostels offer educational opportunities that are unique to our area. These include such program offerings as Rocky Mountain Wildflowers, Nature photography, Geology of the Tetons, Animal Tracking, Skiing, Bird Watching, and Hiking. The Science Explorers Daycamp has expanded to 10 weeks during the summer and offers programs to children from 3 to 12 years old. The Science Explorers have a nature discovery theme each week and receive swim lessons in the only swimming pool in the area. The School Outreach program continues to provide classroom and fieldtrip programs to elementary school children in understanding watershed, winter ecology, mammal tracking, wildflowers, and birds.

The Resort Naturalist program started in 1998 in a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. The program’s objective was to provide environmental interpretation and Wilderness education to Forest visitors. The program has grown to become a desired and valuable addition to visitors’ experience at the Resort. The Forest Service became unable to help finance the program in 2001. The program’s objectives have expanded to include:

• A “Ghee-cology” program that has developed nature oriented fun zones for kids
• Weekly “Nature Nugget” presentations to the Ski and Snowboard School to develop nature teachings they can share with their students
• Making visible to visitors and the community the Resort’s support of science and forest management actions
• Creation of “Targhee in the Community” program, where GTR pays employees to volunteer for environmental initiatives in the community.

In the past three years, Targhee has contributed almost $600,000 in cash and in-kind donations to local non-profit organizations and has dedicated staff time and funding for on-going programs such as the Targhee Institute's Environmental Foundation that was established to support environmental programs in Teton Valley. Gillett continues, "Grand Targhee's plan for a sustainable future will ultimately depend on the success of the region to embrace sustainable decision making priorities. In addition to our improvements to onsite operations, Targhee is fully committed to working with our town and county planners to help build capacity for regional sustainability."

In 2007, the Resort provided:

• 12 workshops on Sustainability-related topics that generated over 800 participants
• Over 15 hours of Sustainability Training provided to employees.
• 18 weekly presentations on climate change and waste management presented to guests.
• Through the “Targhee in the Community Program”, the Resort donated over 150 hours of paid employee labor to assist with environmentally-focused projects in Teton Valley.
• 972 Science Explorer days
• 14 week-long Elderhostel programs
• Winter ecology and watershed snowshoe hikes for 295 school children
• 110 winter ecology snowshoe hikes with over 600 visitors
• 2 evening programs a week (summer and winter) presented to over 1,000 visitors
• Naturalist led wildflower hikes with 176 visitors
• Further, both the Resort Naturalist and The Targhee Institute contributed programs off site to 5th and 6th grade students in collaboration with Friends of Teton River and Teton Regional Land Trust.

Green Building

GTR is participating in the development of guidelines and the first pilot program of the Yellowstone Business Partnership’s “Framework for Sustainable Development.” This program provides a regional development tool that is requires leadership in preserving and enhancing the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

Grand Targee follows the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEEDT) green building guidelines in all renovation and has committed to certification of all future building and design. www.usgbc.org

Since resorts are continuously increasing and improving their environmental practices, we update the Green Resort Guide throughout the year. If you have any information about new resort environmental policies/practices or anything that you think we may have missed, please email greenresortguide@skiclub.co.uk.

• Maps
• Reviews