Environment & Sustainability

Thredbo Powered by Renewable Energy

Thredbo Resort is committed to preserving, protecting, and prioritising our unique alpine environment. We take pride in our long list of environmental initiatives and embrace the opportunity to lead our industry and our community through our shared passion of the mountains towards a more sustainable future, today.

The Environment
Thredbo operates within Kosciuszko National Park, one of Australia’s most beautiful and sensitive natural settings. Our innovative environmental initiatives cover all aspects of resort operations so we can preserve our unique alpine backyard for future generations.

Community
Thredbo understands caring for the environment is a team effort. We work in collaboration with NPWS, Thredbo Chamber, Red Energy, Snowy Hydro, Protect Our Winters (POW) and the community to protect the mountains we value so much.

Leadership
Thredbo is Australia’s first snow resort to have its major resort operations powered by renewable energy, setting a new benchmark for environmental sustainability within the snow industry and protecting our environment into the future.

“Becoming powered by renewable energy has been our goal for some time now and by achieving this we’ve set the environmental benchmark for Australian resorts. We are extremely proud to be at the forefront of reducing our carbon footprint into the future.”

Stuart Diver, General Manager of Thredbo

New Initiatives for 2020

Merritts Gondola
Thredbo’s new favourite ride is not only fast and comfortable, it also uses innovative green technology! Merritts Gondola is driven by an industry leading Direct Drive electric motor system, making the Gondola super quiet and more efficient than a conventional Gondola.

New Organics Recycling Machine
Thredbo’s new Closed Loop organics recycling machine has doubled our capacity in food waste recycling, allowing us to increase the number of restaurants, lodges and apartments in Thredbo taking part. Food waste recycling helps reduce the volume of waste being sent to landfill and creates a usable compost product that puts nutrients back into the soil.

Thredbo Alpine Hotel Plastic Reduction Plan
Thredbo is focused on removing all single use plastic products. Phase one has seen the removal of front of house single use plastic items including replacing plastic straws with paper and the introduction of certified compostable and sustainable sugar cane pulp food packaging. Phase two will see plastic free alternatives for back of house products and the introduction of sustainable alternatives throughout Thredbo Resort.

SNOWsat snow depth technology
Thredbo has invested in new SNOWsat technology to more accurately map snow depth across the resort. This means that snow grooming and snow making is more efficient, saving fuel and energy as well as enhancing your riding experience.

Merritts Gondola, Friday Flat Car Park and Ricochet Mountain Bike Trail Rehabilitation
As part of the new Merritts Gondola and Ricochet mountain bike trail developments a detailed rehabilitation plan has been put in place to help stabilise the soil and provide habitats for native animals. Merritts Gondola rehabilitation work has seen our staff plant over 1,700 native trees, shrubs and poa grass with a further 5,500 to be planted post winter. On top of this, the new Friday Flat car park will see over 2,000 native shrubs planted and the new and existing mountain bike trail network will see 2,500 native shrubs and grasses planted.

Repurposing Materials for the New Friday Flat Car Park
All boulders removed as part of the new Merritts Gondola Mid Station construction have been repurposed and used to build retaining walls in the new Friday Flat car park. On top of maintaining the local beauty of the area, using local repurposed materials means we reduced potential vehicle emissions and energy involved in importing quarried rock.

Renewable Now

At Thredbo, we have harnessed the opportunity to lead our industry and our community toward a more sustainable future, today. Together with Red Energy and Snowy Hydro, we’re proud to be powering all our major resort operations with clean and renewable sources of energy, effective 1 July 2019.

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Keep It Cool

Keep It Cool is a local non-for-profit company based in the Snowy Mountains and run by passionate mountain goers who love our alpine playground.

You’ll find them (and us) supporting all environmental initiatives that cross their path, educating to inspire change, building a community of like-minded people to help create momentum, and planting trees locally to drawdown carbon from the atmosphere and create new habitats for wildlife.

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Greenfleet

Since 2009 Thredbo has partnered with Greenfleet to offset resort vehicle emissions including all fuel used to run our Snow Groomers and the resort shuttle buses. In total we have offset nearly 10,910 tonnes of carbon emissions by planting over 40,000 native trees.

On top of this, in a global first in 2014, Thredbo started a forestry carbon offset program for guests enabling them to purchase a tree for $4.00 when buying lift products. During the 2019 Winter season over 1,000 trees were purchased by guests to offset their drive to the snow.

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EarthCheck

To measure Thredbo’s environmental performance, we have workeds with EarthCheck, a world leader in scientific benchmarking certification and advisory group for travel and tourism since 2012.

Thredbo has been officially awarded Silver Certification under the international recognised EarthCheck Destination Standard for four consecutive years. Once Thredbo attains Silver Certification for a consecutive period of five years, Thredbo will be eligible to attain Gold Certification.

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Protect Our Winters (POW)

Thredbo is proud to be an Australian partner of Protect Our Winters (POW).

POW is a passionate crew of snow enthusiasts, professional athletes and industry partners mobilising the outdoor sports community to lead the charge towards positive climate action. The goals in collaborating with POW include raising awareness of the impact of climate change on our mountain environment and to continuously improve Thredbo’s environmental performance.

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Environmental Week

Environmental week is dedicated to driving awareness about our environmental initiatives and what we can be doing as a community to protect winter and Thredbo to our guests, community and beyond!

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2023 Sustainability Goals

Thredbo’s dedicated Environmental team is always looking for more ways we can reduce our impact on the environment through innovative waste, energy, water, and biodiversity management. By 2023 Thredbo plans to:

Divert at least 50% of waste from landfill
Offset 100% of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the generation of electricity used in resort operations
Reduce town water use by 25% over 2011–12 levels

Biodiversity Management

Thredbo acts in partnership with the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service to protect the native flora and fauna and manage introduced species within the resort. This includes:

Integrated fauna crossings into any new ski slope and mountain biking trails developed by Thredbo so native species are not impacted by recreational activities
The planting of 6,800 native trees, shrubs, and grasses within Thredbo resort in the 2018/2019 summer season by the Environmental Services and Mountain Department, with over 46,000 planted in Thredbo in the last decade.

Energy Management

We employ a number of strategies to keep a cap on energy usage. Some of our current initiatives are:

The new Merritts Gondola uses an industry leading Direct Drive electric motor system resulting in a 5% energy saving over a traditional lift drive system
The Easy Does It chairlift electric drive motor has been replaced with the latest “synchronous reluctance” technology drive system, significantly improving its efficiency when not working under full load
A new automation technology operating mode for the Snowmaking air compressors is being trialed which will save energy by automatically shutting down and restarting the compressors according to snow production requirements
Our snowmaking system has been progressively upgraded and automated resulting in a 40% reduction in energy use per cubic metre of snow produced
Solar Panels installed in 2018 on top of the Thredbo Leisure Centre now supply on average 30% of the venue’s electricity requirements (as of January 2019)
Electric heat pumps are used to heat and cool water in the Thredbo Leisure Centre pool
Thredbo has a Tesla Electric Vehicle charging station in Resort for guests and staff to use – if you would like to charge your vehicle please contact the Thredbo Alpine Hotel on 02 6459 4200
Cogeneration and solar systems are currently being investigated to further reduce energy use

Waste Management

We work with the community to achieve a combined recycling rate of 36% and climbing. Some initiatives to help reach this goal are:

Paper, cardboard, glass bottle and jar, plastic bottle, steel and aluminium can, and battery recycling
Organics recycling – download our guide on what food wastes you can and can’t recycle
Used cooking oil collected onsite is recycled into biodiesel
Collection of used fluorescent bulbs and obsolete or broken mobile phones for recycling
Biosolids from our wastewater treatment plant are used by local farmers for soil conditioning
Bin Your Butts! We have given out over 152,000 personal ash trays to stop cigarette butts ending up in the Thredbo river
Ski school uniforms were returned to the manufacturer PURE for them to reuse and recycle the materials
Old Thredbo uniforms are repurposed into cleaning rags used by the Engineering department

Water Management

A significant reduction of our water usage has been achieved through the installation of low flow showers, waterless urinals, dual flush toilets and water efficient washing machines. The installation of waterless urinals alone saves 500,000 litres of water per year.

The biological and physical condition of the Thredbo River is closely monitored by the University of Canberra Institute for Applied Ecology which allows us to best manage the impacts the resort has on Thredbo River.

Thredbo uses water each year for snowmaking purposes, however the majority of this water returns to the Thredbo River each spring when the snow melts.

Native Animals

Kosciuszko National Park is home to many native animals, some of which are rare or threatened including the Mountain Pygmy Possum and the Corroboree Frog. Help us help our native friends by reducing your impact on their home.

Injured Animals
If you injure an animal on the road within Thredbo Village, please report it to the Environmental Services Department on (02) 6459 4100. If you injure an animal on the Alpine Way or any of the region’s roads, please contact L.A.O.K.O. (Looking After Our Kosciuszko Orphans) on (02) 6456 1313.