Sugar Bowl green rating – Ski Club of Great Britain

Sugar Bowl: green factor

ISO14001 approved:No

Is the resort ISO14001 approved?

ISO 14001 is a worldwide standard of environmental management for any organisation, created in 1996. Ski resorts on at least four continents are known to be working towards obtaining ISO 14001 certification or to have already achieved it. ISO 14001 is an environmental management system applying to those environmental issues which a ski resort business, or any company, has some control over and can be expected to influence if they want to.

The ISO 14001 standard helps any organisation to implement, maintain and improve an environmental management system; assure itself of its conformance with its own stated environmental policy and to demonstrate that it is conforming with those standards and any other environmental laws and regulations.

Recycling:Yes

Does the resort recycle?

Resorts increasingly offer recycling facilities to guests, either within their accommodation and/or at special recycling points, which are hopefully convenient.

As always there's a range of how far individual resorts go. Some go as far as looking to use waste to run their communal heating systems and others make targets to recycle 100% of all waste.

Green power user:Yes

Is the resort a green power user?

'Green' power (eco-friendly) typically means wind generated or other naturally produced energy such as solar cells. On the other hand, some fuel sources like bio diesel are less polluting than conventional fuels so could be considered a step in the right direction, if not the perfect answer.

Of course there is a great variation in how much (or how little!) a resort can do, from running a few snowmobiles on bio-diesel to having the entire resort operating on wind power or other renewable energies.

Traffic reduction:Yes

Does the resort have a traffic reduction policy?

Traffic reduction can take many forms. Several Swiss resorts and a few in other countries have banned cars altogether for decades. Some have never had cars on their streets.

Other approaches include pedestrianised centres and out-of-centre car parking with resort centre access only on foot or by public transport - hopefully, electrically powered buses. These, along with expensive and/or severely restricted resort centre parking, and an efficient free and cheap bus service, all help to reduce traffic problems and thus cut emissions.

Sewage properly managed:Yes

Does the resort have a waste reduction policy?

The influx of winter guests to ski areas tends to bring an influx of, what's politely termed 'waste water', to the mountains as thousands of guests use the toilets on the mountain and bathroom in their accommodation.

The most environmentally forward thinking ski areas are using techniques such as composting to reduce waste from mountain restaurants. In some areas purified wastewater is also being used for snowmaking, on the one hand an eco friendly measure as it recycles, on the other it might be argued that if water is needed for snowmaking in an area of marginal precipitation, their shouldn't be a ski area there.

Climate policy:Yes

Does the resort have a climate policy?

If a ski resort has a climate policy it means that the 'great and the good' in the resort have got together to work out a strategy to minimise the resort's impact on climate change and global warming. This can include many different initiatives such as recycling, communal heating, ensuring new buildings cause minimal environmental impact and so on. Most important is the ethos of the community to take the potential environmental impact of all resort aspects of life into consideration now and in the future.

Green building policy:No

Does the resort have a green building policy?

Ski resorts are increasingly looking at minimising the environmental impact of their construction projects, as well as the impact of newly erected buildings and other infrastructure.

Having a green building policy means resorts put environmental concerns at the top of the list when working on new projects. This can include a myriad of things from using helicopters to reduce the damage to surrounding land when building in sensitive areas, to using natural, local materials for building and looking for maximum insulation and minimum power requirements, ideally supplied in as eco-friendly a way as possible.

Major Initiatives

Sugar Bowl has endorsed the US National Ski Area Association's Environmental Charter, and by doing so has made a commitment in demonstrating environmental protection and stewardship. Sugar Bowl has formed an environmental committee made up of employees who are dedicated to the Environmental Charter's principles, which provide a framework to implement best practices, assess environmental performance, and set goals for improvement in the future.

Here are some ways Sugar Bowl has implemented these principles:
- Implemented an office paper/cardboard recycling program.
- Implemented a container reduction and recovery program. Added a 1,200 sq' Village recovery and recycling facility.
- Recycle used motor oil, solvents and antifreeze.
- Cash incentives to promote employee carpooling and shuttle bus ridership.
- Subsidies paid to promote the Truckee Trolley connection to the Summit community.
- Provide local Summit transportation system.
- Employee clean-up days.
- Surface and ground water quality monitoring program.
- Parking lot storm water runoff collection, oil separators and sediment ponds utilization pursuant to our Storm Water Pollution Protection Plan.
- On hill revegetation, winterization and stabilization projects.
- Elimination of all oil burning heating systems and associated storage facilities.

Green Power & Renewable Energy
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort is committed to environmental sustainability. In partnership with 3 Phases Energy they are now supporting California wind farms by purchasing renewable energy to offset 100% of their energy use. This purchase reduces Sugar Bowl's consumption of fossil fuels, cleans the air, and keeps greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere.

This 4,272 megawatt hour (MWh) per year purchase reduces their consumption of fossil fuels, cleans the air, and keeps 4,588,000 pounds of greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere each year. This is equivalent to planting 310,000 trees or taking 400 cars off of the road for one year.

Recycling at Sugar Bowl
Sugar Bowl first implemented an office paper, cardboard & beverage container recycling program in the fall of 2001. Recyclables were separated on-site and redeemed at the Eastern Regional Landfill Recycling Center.

Approximately 5.5% or total waste generated at Sugar Bowl was diverted through recycling efforts (compared to 1.57% in its first season).

In June, 2002, the state of California awarded Sugar Bowl the largest beverage container recycling grant in the state to promote beverage container recycling and overall recycling awareness in the recreation industry. The grant was administered over a one-year period to purchase equipment, bins and recycling signage to increase convenience and recycling awareness among guests, employees, and the surrounding community.

Striving to Reduce Traffic Flow
Sugar Bowl makes great efforts to help reduce traffic flow to the resort and promote high occupancy vehicle travel. Following is a summary of the costs of these efforts.

Approximately $50,800 in direct costs to promote and operate the Truckee and Summit Shuttle. Approximately 317,000 Vehicle Miles Traveled (BMT) were avoided this season through the Truckee Shuttle Service.

Approximately $70,000 to maintain and keep open old Highway 40, significantly reducing the number of miles traveled to reach us from Truckee and eastern locations.

Recycling Liquid Waste Products
During the 02/03 season, Sugar Bowl recycled over 1,350 gallons of hazardous waste including the following materials: Waste Oil, Solvent, Anitfreeze, Waste Petroleum, Waste Water.

The construction of a garbage and recycling facility was built in the summer of 2003. This facility is easily accessible, reducing the amount of waste handling and transportation, and decreasing the opportunity for habitat tampering, resulting in better environmentally handling of all waste materials at Sugar Bowl.

Preserving water quality at the resort is a priority; water on the mountain is protected using straw bales, waddles, & silt fencing.

In 1994, the resort installed oil separators and sediment ponds for parking lot storm water runoff collection; wells were also installed as part of a surface & ground water quality monitoring program.

Sugar Bowl has a full time summer staff dedicated to erosion control/revegetation projects.

Employees Help
The resort has a clean-up program in the summer in which all employees regularly participate to clean sections of the mountain; we also have adopted a two mile section of Interstate 80 for clean-up.

Sugar Bowl formed an Environmental Committee in the summer of 2001. The committee consists of management and employees who are dedicated to the Sugar Bowl environmental principles of implementing best practices, assessing environmental performance, and setting goals for improvement in the future.

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.

Beginners	Off piste	Families	Ski to door	Large ski area
Intermediates	Mountain restaurants	Non-skiers	Glacier	Modern lift system
Advanced	Luxury accommodation	Value for money	Cross country	No queues
Skiing for all standards	Eating out	Purpose-built convenience	Heliskiing
Moguls	Apres-ski	Snow-sure resorts	Picturesque
Snowboarding	Ski-and-shop	Romantic/charming	Traffic-free

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Sugar Bowl