Ski Area Citizens' Coalition

The Ski Area Citizens' Coalition, a private citizens organization, works to ensure that ski areas are responsive to environmental concerns, their local communities and the skiing public. Most of SACC's volunteers and staff are skiers themselves. They recognize that skiing is a valid use of public lands, but they also recognize that not all ski areas are good stewards of public lands.

http://www.skiareacitizens.com/

The group's Ski Area Environmental Scorecard attempts to distinguish between ski areas that are engaging in environmentally sound practices and those that merely claim to do so. Obviously, there will always be environmental impacts from creating and operating a ski resort. Therefore, the Scorecard rates resorts on current environmental performance rather than impacts from the time of the creation of the resort. Among the factors are impact on roadless areas, logging old growth forests, purchasing clean renewable wind energy, use of cleaner burning biodegradable biodiesel and energy efficiency. SACC's Scorecard is the only non-industry independent assessment of the environmental performance of ski and snowboard resorts.

Surveys show that snowsports enthusiasts consider the environment a higher policy priority than the general public. SACC's goal is to provide the skiing public with the ability to make recreation choices based on their concern for a healthy environment. For more information, and the scorecard results, go to:
http://www.skiareacitizens.com/index.php