Progress report Andermatt Responsible 2023: More guests and high investments are reflected in emissions and energy consumption

In 2021, the Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG defined sustainability goals in the areas of environment, society, and economy. In 2022, the Andermatt Responsible Board was created - a body that strategically manages these topics on behalf of the companies' boards of directors. The Board was reconstituted at the beginning of 2024 in order to cover sustainability endeavours across the destination as far as possible. It has also set further goals: among other things, the Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG want to be climate-neutral in their operations by 2030, have increased guest and employee satisfaction and be sustainably profitable as a company.

High greenhouse gas emissions

The Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG have once again calculated their joint greenhouse gas footprint in 2023. This increased by 55.8 per cent compared to the previous year to 50,458.0 tCO2e*. This increase is due to an intensive construction phase in Andermatt Reuss, renovation work at The Chedi Andermatt and investments in the infrastructure of the SkiArena Andermatt-Sedrun. Greenhouse gas emissions from operations in 2023 were around 11 per cent higher than in the previous year:

The already very low indirect emissions caused by the provision of energy have fallen. Because the electricity and heat supply in all of the companies' new buildings is climate-neutral and the mountain railway facilities are operated with CO2-neutral electricity from the region, these amounted to only 139.8 tCO2e for all companies, 2.1 per cent less than in 2022.

Increased resource consumption

More guests visited the Andermatt-Sedrun destination in 2023. The direct consequence of this is a higher consumption of resources than in the previous year: overall, the Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG used more fossil fuels, more water and more energy for heating and cooling in 2023. In addition, more waste was sent for incineration. An additional reason for the higher fuel consumption figures is the improved data situation compared to the previous year. Electricity consumption has fallen.

Focus on energy efficiency and climate-friendly nutrition

The companies of the Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG also took numerous measures in 2023 to ensure more sustainable operations. One focus was on energy optimisation. For example, Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG and The Chedi Andermatt and Radisson Blu Reussen hotels carried out various optimisations as part of energy efficiency programmes and invested in their own electricity production and the modernisation of infrastructure such as the snowmaking system.

The restaurants of Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG have trained their employees in climate-friendly nutrition, expanded their range of vegetarian and vegan dishes, and launched the "Klimalieblinge", dishes with a lower greenhouse gas footprint than comparable dishes with meat. Andermatt Swiss Alps has put a cooling centre into operation in the Andermatt Reuss part of the village, which supplies the hotels, restaurants, and retail areas with cooling from the groundwater. This has paved the way for sustainable refrigeration.

Andermatt Responsible

The Andermatt Responsible initiative stands for climate-friendly tourism in the Andermatt region. Its aim is to enable resource-conserving tourism operations. The Andermatt Responsible 2023 progress report provides an overview of the CO2 footprint of the Andermatt Swiss Alps Group and Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG, the key environmental indicators and the current ESG projects.

* Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) is a measure for comparing the emissions of different types of greenhouse gases on the basis of their global warming potential (GWP). The CO2 equivalent for a gas is calculated by multiplying the metric tonnes of the gas by the associated GWP. For example, the GWP value for methane is 25 and for nitrous oxide 298, which means that the emissions of one million tonnes of methane or nitrous oxide correspond to the emissions of 25 or 298 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Sources: Global Reporting Initiative and Eurostat.