In a posh resort town where private jets zip in and out, Matthew Hamilton ’95 has an answer for all the skeptics out there.
On a February morning at Aspen Highlands, Matthew Hamilton ’95 makes fast time up the boot-packed trail to the 12,392-foot summit of Highland Bowl. It hasn’t snowed in a while, but Hamilton—tall, gregarious, with a huge, toothy smile—is in good spirits. This is in part because his job requires him to go skiing and in part because the conversation is about green energy, a topic he could discuss long after the lifts have closed and après has begun.
For the past five years, Hamilton has been the sustainability director for Aspen Skiing Company (ASC), which runs the four ski resorts in and around Aspen, as well as properties throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. ASC is regarded as one of the most forward-looking companies in the business. Outside magazine and the Best Companies Group have made it a regular on their Best Places to Work list, and Condé Nast Traveler chose it as one of its top 10 destinations for eco-travel. The company, as well, has earned a slew of awards from local, state, and national organizations.
Hamilton’s job is both to preserve that reputation and to improve upon it. His work takes him to sustainable tourism conferences around the world, as well as to Washington, D.C., to promote renewable energy initiatives and climate policy. You might find him chatting about compost with a ski lodge staffer, leading technical meetings about the output of snowmaking equipment, reviewing audits for various LEED certifications, or negotiating with sponsors like Red Bull about ways to green events like the X Games, which Aspen hosted in 2015.
In addition, Hamilton spearheads ASC’s philanthropy work, directing the Environment Foundation. (Contributions come from ticket sales and employees who donate a few dollars from each paycheck to support local causes.) ASC also encourages its 3,400 employees to do two days of community volunteer work per year, which translates into a potential 15,500 hours.
Hang on, though. This is Aspen we’re talking about. It’s safe to say that billionaires flying private jets in and out of exclusive hamlets so they can, in an evening, blow $100,000 on imported wine and schuss down slopes chiseled from native forests don’t constitute a victory for Mother Nature. It’s all well and good that the on-mountain restaurants stock recycled napkins and offer locally sourced beef, or that Skico’s Limelight Hotel urges guests to go easy on the laundry. But considering
the colossal and urgent challenges climate change poses, one could conclude that sustainability at a posh ski resort is code for greenwashing.
Yet Hamilton’s work—and his response to this specific criticism—suggests a less cynical reality. “We are aware of our impact and constantly work to mitigate it,” he says.
Despite the elevation at Highland Bowl, Hamilton doesn’t sound at all winded. As we hike, he ticks through an exhaustive list of solar, water-conservation, and energy-efficiency initiatives that ASC has undertaken. Then he pauses, looking out west toward the summit of Snowmass and the jagged peaks of the Maroon Bells.
“If you define sustainability as being in business forever, then changing light bulbs, composting, etc., is good and fine. But if you don’t do the rest of it, you’re just scratching the surface. What’s the point?” By “the rest of it,” Hamilton means making the move from operational greening efforts to advocacy.
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Hamilton first began considering this distinction as an undergraduate studying political science and environmental studies, and then during graduate studies in public policy at Georgetown. At the end of the day, he says, winter recreation is just that. Even if Aspen were miraculously to become a net-negative consumer of power, water, gas, food, and so on, climate change based on current national and international rates of fossil fuel burning will continue apace, which threatens the livelihoods and lives of tens—perhaps hundreds—of millions of people. All of which makes the greening of ski area operations sound somewhere between cute and irrelevant.
Yet the Aspen name is not irrelevant. “Meaningful action happens in the halls of our statehouses, board rooms of electrical utilities, and the halls of Congress,” says Hamilton. ASC employees and guests might measure the company’s sincerity by its offering of recycled napkins. “But we can have our biggest impact through leveraging our brand and the influence of our guests, pushing for substantive action on climate and energy policy.” So last year, swapping out his telemark gear for a gray suit and purple tie, Hamilton spent a day lobbying on Capitol Hill. ASC has joined a coalition of businesses that includes Nike, Starbucks, Patagonia, and Unilever in advocating for energy and climate legislation.
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Closer to home, Hamilton’s team does have plenty to boast about. ASC has pledged to reduce its CO2 emissions to 25 percent of its 2000 levels by 2020. The 147kW solar-electric system ASC built on a nearby ranch is the largest such system in the ski industry, and ASC has lent support to several wind and solar developments throughout the region.
The flagship project isn’t located near the ski slopes or fancy stores at Aspen Mountain’s base. It’s beside a coal mine in the tiny town of Somerset, 70 miles southwest of Aspen along the Gunnison River. In a partnership with local mining and energy companies, ASC has spent $5.5 million on the country’s largest facility for converting methane from coal mines into usable electricity.
Methane gas is pumped out of mines to protect miners. And almost all mining operations release that gas into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In fact, it’s 25 times more potent. The idea of capturing it and putting it to better use is not new, but only a few such plants exist in the U.S. The plant in Somerset produces 24 million kilowatt hours—roughly what ASC uses annually. The other benefit, of course, is doing away with methane that would otherwise drift up into the atmosphere. For Hamilton, this project exemplifies what it means to move beyond amorphous notions of sustainability to deliver actual economic and environmental results.
Hamilton, however, rejects the idea that gestures—on-mountain placards about climate change, fuel efficient snow-grooming machines, or even those napkins—are only superficial gestures meant to burnish a company’s image or assuage a resource-devouring clientele’s guilt. “Every initiative taken by a business is an important step towards reducing that company’s impact.” True, two kilowatts of solar on a building that requires 412,000 kilowatts is a drop in the bucket. “But when coupled with educational information and touted publicly, even those two kilowatts can be a powerful influencer of behavior and conversation that in turn motivates larger actions in an employee’s or guest’s life.”
Aspen’s influential clientele can also magnify the impact of these gestures.
Brands, along with the eco-conscientiousness people inevitably encounter during their stay, influence guests whether they’re conscious of it or not. “If they have a chance to look up from their smartphones,” says Hamilton, “they will bump into a message—about climate change, about mining rights, about lighting, about water conservation.” Hopefully these messages affect people—even long after their ski vacation has ended.
Back at Highland Bowl’s summit, Hamilton offers to take photos for a few fellow skiers, then tightens his boots for a run down more than 1,000 vertical feet of soft, wind-blown snow. Before we set in, he shares an anecdote about a recent exchange with a reporter from London who was writing about carbon footprints and ski vacations. He had emailed Hamilton some straightforward questions about eco-friendly operations, and Hamilton, as always, was happy to talk about the good work ASC is doing regarding sustainability.
But the journalist’s final question was trickier: because some 75 percent of the carbon emissions from winter sports can be attributed to travel, wouldn’t it be better for the planet if skiers and snowboarders from Europe didn’t fly to Colorado and instead vacationed closer to home?
Hamilton’s answer: Yes, but.
“My initial response was, ‘Yeah, he’s right.’ People should minimize their carbon footprint vacation closer to home.” That isn’t the whole picture, though. “If a skier really cares about the climate issue, then he has to couple good decisions like skiing locally with broader personal activism on the politics of climate change.” That activism, Hamilton believes, has to include demanding of the resorts we patron both environmentally progressive practices and efforts to move the public-policy needle. “At the end of the day, I think we differentiate ourselves with activism, lobbying, and action on the ground.”
And then he took off down the hill.