The idea was initially hatched by Thomas Hand, a Middlebury graduate, and Jonathan Isham, his environmental economics professor . After Hand graduated, Isham presented the idea to five other students in his environmental economics class , three of whom were on the college's alpine ski team.
"Part of the class [was] to work on a project with a community partner," says Clayton Reed, a junior and one of the college's top alpine ski racers. "We decided to take up the Snow Bowl project because we were up there all the time anyway and had the connections. With some help from others, we were able to really push the college to do it."
Hand, who works for NativeEnergy, a Native American-owned company in Charlotte, Vt., that funds Native American, farmer-owned, and community-based renewable energy projects, helped the students calculate the Snow Bowl's "carbon footprint," the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from ski area operations, plus the amount emitted from skiers' and snowboarders' cars as they drive to and from the ski area: a total of 679.9 tons.
The college then agreed to purchase $7,138 in carbon offsets from NativeEnergy, which is putting this money toward developing two new renewable energy projects that add electricity to the grid: a wind farm in South Dakota and a methane project in Pennsylvania.
With global warming threatening the ski industry, many other ski resorts are investing in green power. The National Ski Areas Association reports that as of December, 51 resorts in 14 states were purchasing renewable energy credits. Currently, 22 of the 51 claim they are "powered 100 percent by green energy," the association reports.
