EU Legislation and the Future of Winter Sports in the Alps

Excerpt from the "Environmental Sustainability in Sports" panel on Day 2 of the Front Runners in Sports Management 5.0 conference hosted on December 8, 2023. Questions by George Timms , answers by Markus Redl.

Q. I think we all know that environmental sustainability is important in general, but I thought we could start by discussing why we think sports are uniquely placed to spread this message and implement environmental initiatives.

A. For skiing, it is a matter of survival. If we cannot stop or at least partly mitigate climate change, many ski resorts will have to stop operations – and this is actually happening all the time. But, as we speak, let's see in Austria: We have 50 million skier days per year, per winter season, so it's actually a [multi-]billion Euro business. But that is, as we speak, the perspective, the outlook is threatened: it's climate change, but then again, a loss of biodiversity, and the mountain regions are especially in need of protection.

So I really love organizations that [have] come to life in the last years: Let's say “ Protect Our Winters ,” which is sort of a grassroots organization, and then there is a “ Mountain Towns 2030 ” organization in the USA, with a lot of the ski towns networking and challenging each other to reach a carbon net zero goal by 2030. So there's a lot of things going on, and we desperately need it in the ski industry.

Q. Markus, what challenges is climate change posing to winter sports, whether it's, you know, moving towards having to use artificial snow or snow melting, what's going on?

A. Snowmaking is absolutely standard in our industry. We have a strong winter this year, and people kept asking: Why do you produce snow? Well, basically, we are anticipating warm weather periods, we are anticipating that it might rain, and man-made snow is more compact, it's more durable. If there is a warm weather period or if there is rain.

If people could see, if my family could see what we actually do with cooling down water so that we can produce more efficiently, more effectively: They're completely taken by surprise; you would not [expect] this kind of machinery or this kind of technical expertise. On the one hand, it's a sad thing; on the other hand, if we say, well, this is an activity that is worthwhile to host and to make it happen, then you have to bring into perspective what the actual CO2 production is.

And the truth is that most of the emissions stem from the actual drive to the ski resort and back home. The figures are astonishing, around 85 to 90 percent – depending, of course, on the distance and mode of travel and so on and so on. But most people go by car, I mean, there is more and more train travel to the ski resorts, but at least in central Europe and in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, it's still like that, most people go by car. And this is something that we try to reduce. We introduced programs for ride sharing, and, of course, we try to utilize that from a historical perspective, most of the ski resorts are close to train lines because that's where alpine tourism started.

So you have St. Anton [am Arlberg], you have Gastein, Semmering, you have so many, Zell am See, so many well-known resorts right next to the train station. I mean, it's sometimes literally possible to step out of the train and into the ski lift. So I think this is the future, we really need to shift the mode of transport for our guests and make it super convenient.

Q. Markus, what about Austria and the tourism industry: How do you think the importance of environmental sustainability can be increased among people working in that area?

A. I think it's already the number one or number two issue, definitely! There are all things related to the workforce and to labor and to be able to employ all the people, the specialists that you need. But you know, frankly, EU legislation [such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)] is coming up, and it applies to many corporations in the tourism industry already, and that's going to speed up. So this is one side of the coin, because you will have to be able, as Daniel said, to report, to comply with what financial institutions are asking you to do – not just reporting, but actual progress.

Then the other side of the coin is that, as we speak, the EU is pushing this Nature Restoration Law, and I believe that this is going to change the landscape for outdoor sports, especially in the mountains. Because what we will be able to do is to say: Well, there are certain areas that we use for tourism and for recreation, and there's also infrastructure there, but then there are other areas that are not used, at least not used extensively, for tourism. And that absolutely makes sense.

It might sound paradox, but a ski resort, from a strictly nature preservation point of view, is a pretty good thing, because you have a lot of people in a rather limited area. So I believe that we will ask ourselves to use the infrastructures that we put in place really, really well.

Just to give you a concrete example: We have a very small resort outside of Vienna, it's one and a half hours by public transport, it's called [ Wexl Arena in] Sankt Corona am Wechsel, and we have all the mountain biking and the winter sports activities there. And we use it almost 365 days a year, and we are now considering construction of another bike lift. So we actually have a bike lift there that is co-used in winter, the lower parts. Just to prepare, to hedge if there's not enough snow, so that we can offer the mountain biking activities.

And I think we will need a lot of flexibility to keep these outdoor recreational sites, these activities, these infrastructures running. And we also, in winter, we use it from, let's say, Thursdays or Fridays up to the weekend, with the lights on in the evening, because it allows the kids, who are in school, to use the infrastructure.

And the logic is: If you do this, then you better use it well. Because then most of the emissions with building and construction work and so on, have already been spent, so we better use it. I believe that's a direction that we will take, with just any infrastructure, or also suprastructure, hotels, and so on, in tourism.

Q. To finish off, I'm going to ask each of the panelists, maybe in one or two lines, what you think, how can we move from sport saying we're going to achieve net zero by a certain target year, to achieving real zero by a timeframe that you know is not going to be too late.

A. What we need is transparency. I mean, we will have some public watchdogs out there. At least I hope so, because the whole reporting is useless if the data isn't analysed in a competent way and also brought to light. And I believe that's going to happen very soon, I hope so.