At the heart of every corporate sustainability story, there seems to be a moment, an event or revelation that drastically changes the perspective of a key person or organization and leads them on a path to more sustainable practices. For Whistler Blackcomb that moment came fairly early, in the spring of 1992. The ski area was a rising star in the resort industry, earning global recognition for its vast terrain, plentiful snow and its pedestrian village. On one sunny spring morning in 1992, it nearly became known for something else, poor environmental stewardship.

Wake up call
One of us (Arthur DeJong) received the call telling him that, through a combination of human error and a lack of containment systems, 800 litres of diesel fuel had leaked from a tank on Blackcomb Mountain and entered a fish-bearing stream. De Jong was responsible for day to day operations and felt a sharp spear of embarrassment and helplessness. “It was a nightmare turned reality when I realized that although we had first class due diligence with guest and staff safety, we had no due diligence with environmental safety”.

The environmental wake up call was a life changing event for the Operations Manager and the company. The only way out of this mess was to tell the blunt truth that we were entirely at fault and to commit to the public that we would never let it happen again. “Sixteen years later I still remember vividly the humbling experience of explaining the incident to the press and government authorities”. Transparency and humility had become a trademark of Whistler Blackcomb programmes.

Relating to stakeholders
We leave it up to our stakeholders to determine if we are demonstrating leadership in sustainable practices. The ski company has been cited as writing the book on stakeholder relations with five out of sixteen of its national/international awards for environmental performance relating specifically to stakeholder relations.

Though we have been early adopters in sustainability planning, we have avoided marketing this in any traditional sense. Our approach is to actively engage our stakeholders on our issues and opportunities. We share our stories, both good and bad, about the efforts we are making to become more sustainable. We feel that our credibility comes from the actions that we take, from the ability to admit our mistakes, and from our desire to include stakeholders in helping us find solutions.

For example, we recognize that climate change threatens the health of our ecosystems and could have very negative impacts on our industry. We also recognize that tourism contributes to climate change. We conduct climate change tours on the mountains to demonstrate this threat and to showcase how we are mitigating, adapting, and diversifying to address this issue. Our three glaciers provide excellent opportunities to physically tell the story of climate change.

The ski area is one of the largest in the world with over 7,000 hectares divided into 3 biogeoclimatic zones and surrounded by Provincial Park. Recently, Whistler Blackcomb adopted an official Sustainability Policy that focuses on five key result areas, including the protection of mountain ecosystems through establishing conservation zones and improving design and mitigation. To date, several conservation zones have been established to protect wildlife and watersheds and more than USD 1.5m has been spent restoring areas negatively impacted by early development practices. Design principles focus on building experiences within existing ecosystems and minimizing any changes to those ecosystems. An example is the Symphony lift project (pictured right), completed in 2006. The footprint of this project was reduced from 40% of the area to 5% through the use of helicopters, working over snow and partially thinning forests for skiing as opposed to completely removing them.

Whistler Blackcomb recognizes that there is opportunity associated with conserving mountain biodiversity. The more we protect our natural assets, the more opportunities we have to share nature-based ecotourism experiences with our guests. We hope to inspire our guests to improve stewardship in their homes and communities. The goal of our programs is to protect, share and inspire. The ski area hopes to continue development of low impact, nature-based tourism to gain better utilization and profitability of its assets during non-winter months. In this regard, integrating environmental and economic strategy produce benefits for both. Presented with these opportunities and daunting challenges, such as climate change, the ski operations sense of urgency to enact and inspire has never been greater.

Doug Forseth is Senior Vice President of Operations and Arthur DeJong is Mountain Planning and Environmental Resource Manager, Whistler Blackcomb.