Interview with Snowboard Pro and Filmmaker Elias Elhardt

The issue is complex. Before one criticizes such a project across the board, one must first clarify what it is actually about. Is it our romanticized understanding of nature, of the beautiful mountains that we want to protect from being transformed into a cultural landscape? Or our concern about the impact of such construction projects on our climate? The Alps have been a cultural landscape for us humans for a very long time, it’s just that the mountains are used differently in modern times. They have become a recreational area for people, even from far away regions. From the point of view of reducing our CO2 footprint, this creates a massive problem. The journey to the winter sports areas has a much greater impact on CO2 emissions than the expansion of a ski area with a new lift. But in the natural landscape, the lift just looks ugly.

I am also a big fan of unspoilt nature and support its preservation. But I deliberately don’t say untouched nature, because that’s hard to find these days. The production of our winter sports products and the way we consume them also releases much more CO2 than the construction work on new lifts and their operation, which is also electric.