Imagine 1.3 million skiers and snowboarders schussing down the slopes, each hauling a 17-pound sack of coal.

The Aspen Skiing Co. operates a four- mountain ski resort, 15 restaurants and two hotels. Last year, the energy needed to keep it all humming released nearly 28,000 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to the company.

If each of the Aspen Skiing Company's 1.3 million annual visitors had to shoulder an equal share of the carbon in those emissions, it would amount to about 17 pounds of coal per skier and snowboarder.

"People need to know - whether they are skiing or commuting to work or flying to Europe - what that means in terms of emissions, and this makes it tangible," said Auden Schendler, director of environmental affairs at the Aspen Skiing Co.

In the grand scheme of things, ski resorts are not major contributors to the global buildup of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases linked to climate change.

But since skiing has no future without cold winter weather and snow, few industries have more to lose if dire climate-warming predictions prove true.

That's why Aspen Skiing Co. decided to set an example for the rest of the ski industry, said company President and Chief Executive Officer Pat O'Donnell.

In 2001, Aspen became the first U.S. ski resort to announce a climate-change policy that includes a commitment to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent by 2010, based on a 1999 baseline.

In case you've never skied Aspen, there are no belching smokestacks on the hillsides.

When company officials talk about cutting emissions, they really mean conserving electricity so less coal has to be burned at power plants.

The company also strives for increased use of alternative-energy sources such as wind, and cutbacks on gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas.

Each year, it publishes a report that details energy consumption during the previous year and progress toward the 10 percent reduction.

Several energy efficiency and alternative-energy projects have been completed or are underway at Aspen.

They include:

* An onslope micro-hydroelectric system that uses the Snowmass snowmaking system to channel spring runoff through a turbine, generating electricity. The first of its kind in the ski industry, the pilot project is expected to produce enough energy to power 40 homes this spring.

* Two buildings that have achieved energy-efficiency certification through the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The buildings are the Sundeck Restaurant atop Aspen Mountain and the new Snowmass Golf Clubhouse.

* Extensive lighting and compressor retrofits. In the parking garage beneath the company-owned Little Nell Hotel, for example, 110 metal halide lamps were swapped for energy-efficient T-8 fluorescent fixtures. The change prevents the emission of 150 tons of carbon dioxide each year and saves $10,600 annually, according to the company. Lights also were switched in the hotel kitchen.

* The company buys 5 percent of its electricity from renewable sources - mainly wind farms - each year.

* It uses 260,000 gallons of biodiesel fuel for its snowcats each year, reducing air pollution. The fuel mix contains conventional diesel and fuel made from soybean oil.

Charter for Sustainable Slopes

Now the company's leaders are no ski-slope Pollyannas, hoping to save the world by changing a few light bulbs. They realize that their efforts alone will not measurably reduce the explosive global rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gases produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels.

"It's a small, small, small, borderline-irrelevant piece of the (global) puzzle," Schendler said of the energy-saving measures.

"But it's done in good faith, and it gives us credibility when we talk to Congress and to the governor, which we do," he said.

And Aspen is not alone in its green pursuits.

In 2000, ski areas across the country adopted an environmental charter commonly known as the Sustainable Slopes program. It proclaimed climate change a potential threat to the industry and identified voluntary steps - energy conservation, waste reduction and public education - that participating ski areas can pursue.

To date, 177 resorts have endorsed the charter, said Geraldine Link, director of public policy at the Lakewood-based National Ski Areas Association. The group represents 326 ski resorts.

Seventy-one of the resorts have signed letters endorsing the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial smokestacks.

"Our view is that if we're going to ask other people to make changes, we have to make changes ourselves," Link said. "And for our effort to be credible, we have to be the most sustainable operations we can be."

But a 2004 study by two public policy analysts found that, in many cases, participation in the Sustainable Slopes Program was more show than substance.

Participating ski areas "appear to be displaying rather opportunistic behavior, expecting to improve their 'green' reputation" without reducing environmental impacts, Jorge Rivera and Peter de Leon wrote in The Policy Studies Journal.

The practice they describe is sometimes called "greenwashing."

"The vast majority of the Sustainable Slopes program is, I believe, abused by the ski industry as a green-marketing tool," said Jeff Berman, executive director of Colorado Wild, a Durango-based conservation group that publishes an annual environmental scorecard on Western ski resorts.

'We're not a land trust'

Not so, Link said.

Electricity-conservation efforts under the Sustainable Slopes program have saved the equivalent to 90.2 million pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions, she said. Thirty of the participating resorts now purchase "green energy" sources such as wind and solar.

"Since when is that green-washing?" she said.

"And just for your background, the scorecard is developed by a group of environmental activists who sue ski areas," she said. "That's what they do for a living. They are not neutral. They're not objective."

Despite its reputation as an environmental leader, the Aspen Skiing Co. is moving ahead with plans for a new $400 million Base Village at Snowmass.

The development includes 349 condominiums, 246 hotel rooms and 64,000 square feet of new shops and restaurants.

Plans for the new village, proposed by Canada's Intrawest Corp. and Aspen Skiing Co., were approved by Snowmass Village voters last month.

If energy conservation is such a high priority for the company, why not adopt a zero-growth policy and make do with existing facilities?

"We're not an environmental group or a land trust," O'Donnell said.

"I run a for-profit company. My challenge is to find a balance between economic viability and environmental sustainability," said O'Donnell, former president and chief executive officer of the Patagonia clothing company.

Skier visits at Snowmass have been declining for several years. Snowmass needs a revitalized base village with plenty of "support amenities" to compete with other resorts, O'Donnell said.

"I can't let Snowmass die."

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