Climate Friendly Alpine Destinations

Strong partners are collaborating in an attempt to embed climate protection in touristic Swiss Alpine destinations. The new initiative is called “Climate protection here and now!”.

Climate pioneers at the regional climate protection day in Brauwald as part of “Climate protection here and now!”. In this photo: Braunwald primary school pupils, Patric Vogel, Director of the Fairy-Tale Hotel Braunwald, and Karin Spori, myclimate

“Climate protection here and now!” was founded by the community network Alliance in the Alps together with the universities HTW Chur and HSR Rapperswil, as well as myclimate and climatop.

As popular tourist destinations, Braunwald, Saas Fee, Sattel and Scuol have all acknowledged the inherent risk from climate change. Together they plan to drive forward the initiative “Climate protection here and now!”. This will mean reducing their own CO₂ emissions and developing attractive, climate friendly offers for guests. As part of this project, which is also supported by SECO’s Innotour programme, the companies have developed strategies and mission statements, produced carbon footprints, and designed and realised initial offerings. Sustainable, climate friendly positioning is the long-term goal.

Initial pilot activities in these communities have shown how climate protection can go hand-in-hand with tourist attractions. Braunwald held a regional climate protection day. Sattel developed a completely new tourism mission statement and set up a platform to improve the utilisation and renovation of second homes. Scuol translated the concept of a climate-neutral bike marathon to other events. Saas Fee ran a workshop to gather ideas to be implemented in future.

myclimate, climatop, HSR Rapperswil and HTW Chur bundled their skills to tackle the challenging carbon footprinting process. Above all, this helped identify solutions in the difficult areas of system delineation and data sourcing. All insights developed here will be consolidated into a manual and made available to similar destinations.

Stay informed!