Greening of the 'ghee

Thursday, September 04, 2008

By Ben Cannon

At Grand Targhee Resort, the times, until very recently, had slipped by rather quietly. The quaint 96-bed resort remains most popular during the winter season, when skiers and snowboarders travel from around the region to access intermediate terrain with short lift lines at pass prices lower than many other resorts in the Mountain West. While officials at the 39-year-old destination have said they aim to preserve these characteristics, the resort will begin to look and feel dramatically different in the coming decade, as it begins to phase through major expansion as early as next summer. In February, Teton County commissioners approved a plan to expand the village to 450 units, with greatly expanded, mixed-use commercial space.

Change is in the air at Grand Targhee, and part of the shift includes an operations model currently transitioning from not-exactly-progressive to one a resort official said could eventually be the vanguard of resort industry greening.
In early 2007, Grand Targhee management hired the resort’s first full-time director of sustainable operations. Since that time, Christina Thomure, has helped change the day-to-day operating culture of the resort to a workplace of environmental awareness.

“The old era of it was more of a public relations thing,” Thomure said, noting that Grand Targhee, like other resorts, had trumpeted ideas such as “lifts run by wind power” – a vague statement that can be used misleadingly by the industry to suggest environmental mitigation, she said.

In a move that officials said is not another case of green-washing to gain public favor for its expansion, Grand Targhee announced last week that it would be an early participant in The Climate Registry, a watershed new initiative to verify, record and publish annual greenhouse gas emissions from participating organizations.

Grand Targhee will be the first ski resort in the country to voluntarily monitor and make public the size of its greenhouse gas footprint, according to Dave Hudacsko, a resort spokesman.

Thomure has overseen the implementation a lot of relatively quick-fix day-to-day changes – a wide-net recycling program, switching to reusable or renewable utensils and containers, replacing utilities with more efficient models, using bio-diesel fuel – that have become commonplace at many resorts.

Nonetheless, one ski industry watchdog group, Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition, which monitors and grades most major and mid-sized ski resorts across the country, gave Grand Targhee a mediocre ‘C’ – ranking considerably above ‘F’ tier resorts like Sun Valley, Idaho, and Colorado’s Copper Mountain, but still falling below, by the SACC’s reckoning, Aspen, Colo., and Utah’s Park City. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, for comparison, earned a ‘B.’

Hunter Sykes, who coordinates the SACC, said the resort had points deducted for its move to expand.

“We’re pretty aware of the things they’ve been doing,” Sykes said, continuing, “they’ve been doing some pretty cool things and their hearts are in the right place. The question is, will that ideology somehow make it to the expansion and new real estate?”

Thomure took issue with the SACC grading system, saying it disfavors smaller resorts when they expand, while a large established resort, regardless of the size of its physical footprint, is not penalized.

Montana’s Moonlight Basin, open since 2003, and Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin – both mid-size resorts that have had recent building activity – have also received tepid environmental scores.

“They’ve put environmentalism at the forefront of the ski industry,” Thomure said of the SACC. “I understand they try to deter resorts from expanding,” she added, “but they’re giving [high marks] to resorts with 10 times the impact of Grand Targhee.”  
Thomure, who sits in on weekly meetings of a resort management team, said that while a master plan has not been unveiled among the administration, all new development will aim to meet design guidelines set forth by the Greater

Yellowstone Business Partnership’s Framework for Sustainable Development. The regional recognition was adapted from the prominent LEED certification, a national standard for environmental building.

Meanwhile, Thomure has become known around Grand Targhee as stickler for conservationism, teaching and perpetually reminding employees what they can do to save fuel here, electricity there. She said she has gone through the trash bins of resort employees in search of recyclable materials discarded as trash.

“I’ve seen a culture shift since I’ve been on board,” Thomure said. “Is our vision at the vanguard? It’s the vision for the owner and the vision for us.”

Geordie Gillett, who owns Grand Targhee Resort, was not available for comment Monday.
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