Responsible Tourism: Achievements & Targets

Ski Beat's green aims and targets for season 08/09:

Undertake an energy audit of our UK operations
Continue to persuade owners to build more eco-friendly ski chalets and instal more green features in existing ski chalets - Solar panels will be added to Chalet Sorbier, la Plagne for 2008/09
We have calculated the emissions from transfers to resorts and added this to the carbon offset charge for season 08/09 - see what we did with last year's funds
Reduce our paper consumption further by emailing all correspondance with clients, instead of posting
Review our operations in the French Alps with the aim of reducing our carbon footprint overseas
Persuade more of our skiing guests to use our digital e-brochure: if you want to pass our brochure to a friend this really is the easiest and most eco-friendly way;
Maintain our position as the most eco-friendly ski chalet company of our size, and strive to achieve AITO's new 5 Star Responsible Tourism rating. We have just been awarded the 4 star rating, Oct 2008.

Achievements for season 07/08:

We have persuaded builders of four of our six new chalets to use green technology to make more eco-friendly ski chalets - for example a zero emissionn bio-mass heating systems in Chalet Adelphine, Meribel, or collecting melted snow to provide water where untreated water can be used, in Pierra Menta 1 & 2 in La Plagne
Provide a carbon offset service with TICOS to help offset your emissions - see how your funds are making a difference
Make all our ski flight to Chambery ticketless: we believe that this and other measures will cut our paper consumption a further 10%
Ski Beat no longer sends a hard copy newsletter in the Spring, this has saved 42,000 bits of A4 paper plus almost 20,000 envelopes. For up to date news and offers please see our website, and make sure we have your email address so that you will receive future e-newsletters.
Ski Beat encourages car sharing in its UK office, we estimate that this has already cut emissions from travel by our UK team by 20%
By offering flexi-time within the UK we believe that we have better coverage for our phone lines and cut our emissions by a further 4%
By switching off lights on bright days and removing the starter motors from lights next to the windows we have cut our electricity consumption on lighting by some 30%
Ski Beat was awarded 3-stars under the AITO responsible tourism scheme. This recognised us to be the top eco-friendly ski chalet operator and was partly due to our new eco-friendly ski chalets

Achievements for season 06/07:

Ski Beat was awarded 2-stars under the AITO responsible tourism scheme. This made us one of only three ski holiday companies awarded more than one star
We reduced our paper consumption (except for our brochure) by 37% per skier compared with the previous winter. This was largely through introducing ticketless flights to the Alps
Almost completely eliminated wasted brochures: as at 1 July 2007 we had less than 150 brochures remaining from last winter. It would be far better not to print them: please use our digital e-brochure particularly if you want to pass our brochure on to a friend