Ecological sustainability

Sustainability is a major issue. It is so big that when sometimes has the feeling that anything that's done is just a drop in the bucket, but that's not the case. Sticking with the idea of a drop, steady drops will eventually fill and then overflow the bucket. With a sustainable lifestyle, we can all do our part to help out. For instance, making sure that we generate little or no food waste or finding out whether the electricity we use is climate neutral. We as a company also have a responsibility to the environment. At Andamatt Swiss Alps, sustainability is embedded in the corporate strategy. What does sustainable mean exactly? A word that is used nearly exponentially today. One way of summarising it, being mindful of future generations when consuming raw materials and other of earth's treasures, it also means responsible corporate governance. This has an impact on the conditions in which people work and thus also live. The term ESG environment, social and governance is often heard in this context. Back in September, we talked about social sustainability at Andamatt Swiss Alps. And today, the topic is environmental sustainability. It is of course a very big topic, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at a few projects. And with this brief introduction, we're already well on our way. Welcome to the Andamatt Swiss Alps Company podcast. Here is where we put our promises to the test. The promise in this episode is that we are committed to sustainable tourism that preserves resources, with the goal of having operations to be climate neutral by 2030. Our initiative for environmentally friendly tourism is called Andamatt Responsible. We calculate our carbon footprint so that we can check and also show how we're doing with our sustainability. Carmen Carfora is the sustainability expert at Andamatt Swiss Alps. And also at Andamatt Severin Sport, out of gate. She explained to me somewhat more precisely what a carbon footprint is. By carbon footprint, we mean the amount of greenhouse gases that we as a company emit per year. This includes, for example, heating related emissions. But hours are quite low since we heat with district heating. It also includes exhaust from vehicles or machinery and gas used for cooking at the hotels. We also include indirect emissions that are generated, for example, by hotel laundries or catering operations, or when food and beverages are produced and delivered. We have been calculating the carbon footprint for Andamatt's responsible since 2019. It has gone up in recent years, mainly as a result from all the construction activity in Andamatt's Royce. Given that there are currently two hotels, more than 20 multi-family houses, a car park and a ski area, it comes as no surprise that energy consumption is enormous. We are already drawing all of our electricity today from renewable sources, from wind and water. But such an amount first needs to be produced. Demand and production are different in summer and winter. The Ursa Rampower station sells only got-hard energy. That of course raises the question of what they do in winter when demand is higher than what can be produced from water and wind. General manager of the Ursa Rampower station provided an answer to that question. There are repeatedly phases during the year when we don't produce enough electricity to meet demand. In that case, we purchase electricity on the market. That is a very common practice. The electricity then must of course possess the label that we sell, got-hard energy. For us to be able to prove that this is the case, there are so-called origin certificates that can be purchased along with the power. And if you consider that for large rivers originating under-mart, then nearly all water comes from the got-hard region and therefore also has an appropriate origin certificate. Buying electricity is a common practice, which is also monitored by the Federal authorities. One project is currently in the home stretch. We'll always have enough electricity. In addition, there's the good-shwind farm, which we'll be building here in under-mart in the coming years. If all goes according to plan, we'll soon be wrapping up the planning phase and starting construction. That means being able to produce even more renewable energy in the form of wind power, starting in the autumn of 2025. Moreover, we'll also be producing our own power in future. The façade on the next hotel will consist partly of solar panels, which will provide some of the electricity that will be used by the hotel. Also, all of Andamatt, including the Chedi Andamatt Hotel, is heated in a climate neutral manner. Heat is supplied by the got-hard heating plant in Koshonen. But here too, the question arises of whether there will be enough heat in the future. In addition to all of the new buildings in Andamatt Royce, other Andamatt residents will also opt for climate neutral heating in their homes. About 160 properties are already drawing district heat from the got-hard heating plant. Mark Fockt, general manager of both the got-hard heating plant and Netska-Selvjade and Amatt offers reassurance. They will be able to supply enough heat also in the future. We have, of course, made provisions to ensure sufficient heat in Andamatt Royce and in the village also in the coming years. At Netska-Selvjade, we're already making preparations to fortify our pump systems. Other projects are already on track. Among others, they include storage projects so that we can cover heating needs in the coming years as well. For example, on December 24th, when all hotels and apartments are fully occupied, so that we can cover the entire heating demand at the right time. Another big sustainability issue is food waste. Andamatt Swiss Elbs has two standalone restaurants in addition to those in the hotels, while Andamatt's Sedrensport Algae has several amounted a few years ago in Carmen Carpora launched various projects to reduce food waste. In the hotels kitchen waste is recorded and analysed using artificial intelligence. At the restaurants on the mountain, food that had to be disposed of was sorted, weighed and recorded in an app during the measurement phase. This included peelings and remnants from guest meals, but also buffet food that had reached its expiration date. We then analysed precisely where this waste could be avoided and derived measures from this. That has an effect not only for us. Food of course also has to be produced, transported to us, cooked, all of these steps create emissions. Reducing waste has a much larger impact than one realises. The gratifying thing about this project is that we found that we generate very little food waste. Per guest, it's roughly as much as a cherry tomato. Nevertheless, we're keeping an eye on things and we'll be measuring on a regular basis to see how much is landing in the recycling bin. What is the only way to do an even better job in this area? The restaurant have also upgraded in terms of sustainability in other areas as well. Marin Mulla is head of gastronomy at Andemat Segrin Schilderamut, our Gail, our CEO, Falko, to explain that this is even more sustainable measures this year. We are continuously working to reduce our carbon footprint. That is definitely a step-by-step process, not only with regard to the measures, but also in terms of inward and outward awareness. In other words, with respect to everything we impart to our guests and our employees, that way we can ensure drop-by-drop that expertise comes about unconsciously by making choices. Each of us has it in our power and can choose for ourselves to leave behind a somewhat smaller carbon footprint. This winter season we launched an initiative called Klima Lieblinger, or Climate Favorites. These are dishes that are listed on the menu with a special symbol. The dishes in meatless or even vegan, meaning that their carbon footprint is also a bit smaller. The idea for this came from the fact that mountain cuisine everywhere in the world uses little meat. Think of lentil-based dals, cheesy kez especially, or potato-based maloons. That way we give our guests, and also our employees, the opportunity to make a climate-neutral choice. In terms of the products we buy, we are focusing on using only Swiss meat and Swiss fish products without exception. For those dishes where we make the use of these high-quality proteins, these animal proteins, we use them to make sure that they are well-cooked. chicken nuggets and fish sticks now come only from Switzerland. We've chosen to use organic teas, even the packets and outer packaging are made of plant fibers, meaning that everything is fully compostable. And we hope to take further steps year by year, season by season, in order to reach our shared goal of reducing our carbon footprint. An important aspect of climate regulation are forests. The Ursula Valley doesn't have many of them. Historical documents show that even as far back as the 11th century, large areas were deforested. Ferrain, volt and clemauson, Ursula and forest and climate association wants to change that. A group of people with a wide range of backgrounds and strong ties to the Ursula Valley and its wild, rugged nature have come together to reforest the Ursula Valley. They want to make a contribution to a carbon neutral society and increase awareness for the fact that everyone can do something to prevent climate change. Pascal Heinegger is a forester, the forest and climate association. It is highly unusual in Switzerland for an association to tend to reforestation. Forests are actually increasing in Switzerland, particularly in the mountains, for that reason neither the federal government nor the Canton has provided any assistance with reforestation. In our valley, the Ursula Valley, we are truly the big exception. We have only 6% forest. Of that, not even 1% is high forest, the rest is brushland. This also means that we have almost no barrier woodlands protecting streets and homes against avalanches and rockfalls. That is also one of the reasons why we are reforesting. Most of this involves barrier woodlands. Because this project is not being supported by the federal government, we decided to form an association. The Ursula Valley is truly an exception. All surrounding valleys have more than 20% forest. And Matt Swiss Alps also has a bit of forest in the Reed-Borten district in Hospital. It has partnered with the Forest and Climate Association to finance saplings and maintenance, predominantly spruce and large are being planted. A lot of effort is involved in maintaining the little trees. For that reason, Andamat Swiss Alps employees have regular planting deployments where they can help out with reforestation. Serge Gerber is responsible for data and analysis at Andamat Swiss Alps. For once, he's left his computer workstation, puts on overalls and headed out to the forest. We were in the forest, in the young world, and we had a lot of fun. We were with Pascal in the forest, tending to the young saplings. I do that every few years and find it very exciting. It's a contribution for the coming generations. I have children myself and therefore think it's very important. We cleared away the ferns around the young trees so that they were able to grow well. And it's also really nice to spend time outdoors in this wonderful mountain air up here. I think it's a great thing. The association gets by not only on volunteers who get involved and help out, but also on donations. The link to the association and to the work efforts can be found in the show notes. It's currently our winter break. We'll have a booth a few more times at various markets and hopefully can recruit some more members that way. In the spring, we'll be back at work outdoors, and events for people who want to help out. We'll also be planting a large number of trees in the spring. But even though there's snow on the ground now, we're not out of things to do. We're busy making preparations so that we can get back into the woods once the snow is melted. We naturally welcome every helping hand at that time. It does a lot for us and also saves us money that we would otherwise have to spend to plant trees or maintain the forest. A number of things are already underway, and many initiatives have been launched for treating nature in an environmentally friendly manner that preserves resources. But will that be enough to enable us to reach our goal of having climate neutral operations by 2030? That was also a question for our sustainability expert, Carmen Carfora. We're really happy to see how many of the areas we've been working on. That's an excellent question. We're already doing quite a lot in the various departments. At the same time, there are several areas that we can tackle all on our own. High-performance snow groomers that aren't powered by diesel engines are not available on the market. While hybrid groomers exist, we have one in the ski area. They still need fuel. We're therefore waiting for synthetic fuel. There are other examples like this. For that reason, we're concentrating on measures that we can influence directly in order to reduce our carbon footprint. That was from today's Andamatt Swiss Alps company podcast. If you're interested in learning how the destination in the heart of Switzerland is continuing to develop and would like to hear our stories, then subscribe to us. You can also leave a rating if you liked this podcast. If you have a topic that you're particularly interested in, write about it in the comments or send an email to [email protected]. We look forward to your input. We're signing off for today, but we'd be pleased if you tuned in again next time. Goodbye for now.