Travindy interviews Patrick Thorne, founder of Save our Snow, a project dedicated to providing impartial information about how climate change is affecting ski resorts, mountain regions and polar areas.
The organisation’s new website showcases ski resorts’ green practices and sustainability initiatives across all levels of the triple bottom line.
TRAVINDY: What are the challenges your company is trying to address?
SAVEOURSNOW: SaveOurSnow endeavours to collate information on what ski areas around the world are doing to fight climate change in order to encourage skiers, boards and the ski industry to adopt best practice and minimise their impact and slow climate change.
TRAVINDY:Â What is the impact you are trying to achieve?
SAVEOURSNOW: Publicity for the issues and to provide a factual resource people can use when they want information. We have seen a lot of people peaching about the need to ‘be green’ and ‘do something’ but then there is an apparent gap in anyone being there to tell people actually what they can do. So we aim to do that.
TRAVINDY:Â What’s special about your approach to meeting these challenges?
SAVEOURSNOW: We’re knowledgeable about our subject area and have relationships with key players built up over upto 30 years. We also have strong written communication skills aiming to make complex subjects easier for non-specialist people to understand.
So we hope we both offer the most comprehensive resource there is for the ski industry and communicate it in the most effective way. We also have experience in news journalism so can choose stories we know will attract interest and attention to our cause.
TRAVINDY:Â What’s the most exciting thing you, your company, or your organisation has achieved so far?
SAVEOURSNOW: We’ve been featured in media around the world; most exciting was perhaps when we were mentioned by China Morning News. We’ve also been contacted by numerous journalists and students looking for help and advice.
TRAVINDY:Â What do you need to help you be more successful?
SAVEOURSNOW:Â Communication specialists. Clear communication platforms. Finance to pay for the time involved in research and delivery.
TRAVINDY: What does that success look like? Share your dream with us.
SAVEOURSNOW: Ski areas being 100% green energy powered and exporting green energy to the grid. People travelling to ski areas in low/zero carbon vehicles. An end to public/media misconception about the attitude of most people in the ski industry don’t care about the environment.
TRAVINDY:Â Which other person, company or organisation would you most like to recommend to be interviewed for this series, and why?
SAVEOURSNOW: Daniel Elkan at SnowCarbon has similar values.
Alison Garnett at the SaveOurSnow Foundation in the US is more pro-active and visits ski resorts in North America in person and campaigns personally at G20 climate change meetings.
