Green Ski Resorts

If you are planning to ski this winter and want help choosing a greener ski resort, there are several helpful sources of information available.

  

British Ski Club Guide to Greener Resorts

 Mountain Riders Eco Guide to Mountain Resorts

 

Still want to enjoy the mountains in winter but not happy with the environmental impact of the skiing industry? Try a snow shoeing holiday! As well as making less of an impact than skiing, snowshoeing is cheaper and easier. Snowshoeing away from the resorts and prepared runs is also less crowded and more peaceful. See a different side to the mountains in winter. Come and join a Pyrenees Mountain Adventure snowshoeing week and make your own fresh  tracks in the snow. 

 

 

 

Business As Unusual

Three videos from the Patagonia  that ask some important questions that will hopefully get you thinking. As the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, says 'Lead an examined life'. Reflection is the key!

What's Done in Our Name? Social Responsibility and the Patagonia Supply Chain

  

21 Apr 2009. Patagonia customers tell us their desire for fair working conditions for the people who build their product; experts at universities and NGOs outline the challenges inherent in global production; and Patagonias social-responsibility and production staff talk about the tightrope walk of doing the right thing yet working in a competitive world. 

What Comes Next? Environmental Responsibility and the Patagonia Supply Chain

 

|2 Oct 2009. Patagonia asks the experts: What are the greatest threats now facing the environment? Is sustainability a real and achievable goal? Can business ever move beyond sustainability - leaving the planet better than we found it? How do we need to change business - and our behavior - to start to substantially lighten our footprint? We get some surprising and contradictory answers.

What Is Quality for Our Time? Responsible Business and the Patagonia Supply Chain

28 May 2010. Can a good product be made in a bad factory? We talk to business people and teachers about a contemporary definition of quality that includes social and environmental responsibility ­ and every process involved in the creation of a product.

Business As Unusual was the title of a book by Anita Roddick a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner. She was best known as the founder of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism.  

Anita Roddick web site.

Make Love, Not Children

There is a new way to save the planet that is creating a bit of a buzz : just say no to kids ! They call themselves GINKs . Green Inclination No Kids. Women who have decided, despite social pressure from friends and relatives, to not have children. Their manifesto is that by not having children they are helping to save the planet by reducing population growth, waste production, resource consumption and CO2 emmissions. Their slogan is 'Say it loud : I am child free and I'm proud.'

As well as helping to save the planet, GINKs rather than being less happy without children may be happier. This 'green lifestyle choice' unlike many, may not involve as much of a sacrifice. This is for a number of reasons.

Although children are a source of happiness, other sources of happiness tend to get crowded out.  Couples who have children discover that bringing them up properly is very hard work and takes up a lot of time and anergy. Time and energy that used to be invested in the couple. New parents find for the first 2 or 3 (18?) years, there is less time and energy for themselves to do other things that used to make them happy.  Less eating out, less cinema visits, less meeting up with friends, less making love.

Not having children also frees up income the couple can spend on themselves. Children are expensive in finacial terms as well as the time and energy that needs to be invested.

Want to read more? Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable by Stefanie Iris Weiss.

1% for the Planet

This week Pyrenees Mountain Adventure became a proud member of 1% for the Planet.

This not for profit organistion was started in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard, founder and Managing Director of Patagonia, and Craig Mathews, owner of Blue Ribbon Flies. It is a growing, global movement of companies that donate 1% of their sales to environmental organizations worldwide.

By 2009 the 1% for the Planet community numbered 1200 members in 38 countries. In total, over $50 million of critically needed funds has been given to non – profit environmental groups.

Members contribute one percent of revenues directly to any of the approved non-profit environmental organisations in 1%’s network. Non-profits are chosen based on referrals, track record and environmental focus. Over 1,600 non-profits worldwide are included in the 1% program.

“The shared belief that you can do well as a business by doing the right thing with respect to the environment is clearly apparent.” Terry Kellogg, Managing Director, 1% for the Planet.

To learn more about 1% for the Planet visit www.onepercentfortheplanet.org

"The idea of wilderness needs no defence, it only needs defenders" Edward Abbey

"Do something for wild places and wild creatures" John Muir