The Aspen Skiing Company is loud and clear about its opinion on “sustainable business” practices, like buying carbon offsets and declaring “net zero” operations.
They even print it on some of their chairlifts: The whole concept is “bunk,” the lift ads say, “like telling your doctor you’ll stop smoking by 2050, or canceling out those burgers with extra broccoli.”
This year’s sustainability report, released yesterday by parent company Aspen One, doesn’t pull punches either, as it outlines the organization’s unique approach to addressing climate change. It comes two and a half decades after SkiCo’s first sustainability report, and is titled “25 Years of Questions” — digging into environmental issues as well as social ones, like diversity on the ski slopes and the local housing shortage.
The 2024 edition calls carbon offsets “bogus.” It says tracking one business’s emissions is “a waste of time and resources” when there’s a big-picture climate crisis to solve. And it declares that traditional best practices for corporate sustainability — like reducing a carbon footprint or “greening” operations — are just “what the fossil fuel industry wants us to do to avoid disrupting the carbon status quo.”
So the company says it’s focusing on systemic change instead, through political activism and sway in the corporate world. They’re more interested in getting people to vote, lobbying for climate legislation, and inspiring other companies to hop on the same boat. The 2024 report breaks down into three sections: “spread the word,” “wield power,” and “model solutions.”
“Net zero, offsets, carbon targets, carbon neutrality. Those aren’t real climate solutions,” Aspen One’s senior vice president of sustainability Auden Schendler said in a press release statement; it’s the same language printed on those chairlift ads. “Proof? As more companies than ever jump on the sustainability train, planet-cooking emissions continue to rise. What if businesses used influence, voice, and money to drive political change?”
That voice is often a little cheeky, probing at the commonly held beliefs of corporate social responsibility and environmental social governance while citing books about ethics and major media stories about climate change. The content came from Schendler, as well as Senior Manager of Sustainability and Philanthropy Hannah Berman, and Community Engagement Director Michael Miracle.
The strategy is “intentionally provocative,” according to a press release statement from Aspen One CEO David Tanner. The company is focused “not on just incremental operational greening, but on driving the broader systemic change that is needed to overcome the greatest challenge of our age,” he added.
The company has still greened its operations though, particularly in its skiing and hospitality divisions. Aspen One includes SkiCo’s four ski areas — Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk Mountain and Snowmass Ski Area — as well as a portfolio of hotels and restaurants and an AspenX division of luxury retail and experiences.
And it continues to set goals for reducing its emissions — albeit with an “alright, already!” sigh toward the “corporate environmental movement.”
Schendler, who leads the sustainability department, wrote for SkiCo’s website that that carbon targets shift blame away from the fossil fuel industry, but the company still sets them because “it’s about business efficiency and role-modeling.” Schendler’s piece is the first article cited in a list of sources that informed this year’s sustainability report.
The data in the latest sustainability report shows the company’s total emissions have been on a downward trend since 2000, even as operations have expanded. The report indicates that Aspen One remains committed to eco-friendly buildings, electrification efforts, and alternative energy sources.
And while they missed their target of a 25% reduction by 2020 — using the year 2000 as a baseline — Schendler wrote that the company is on track to exceed the goal in a few years, due in part to changes SkiCo pushed for at the local power utility, Holy Cross Energy. Aspen One’s new “stretch target” is a 77% reduction from that same baseline, by the year 2030.
