Industry News
The Summit at Snoqualmie, a five-mountain ski area east of Seattle in the Cascade Range, Washington, has been awarded the 2025 NSAA Golden Eagle Award for Overall Environmental Excellence. The industry award is among the highest honors in the ski industry for environmental performance and was established in 1993.
NSAA announced the winners on May 14, and cited the resort’s comprehensive, systems-based approach to sustainable lift construction and deconstruction as clearly advancing its ForeverProject 2030 goals. Winning the overall prize means The Summit was judged to have demonstrated the broadest and most holistic commitment to environmental performance across its entire operation. Runners up were Vail Resorts, Colorado, and Copper Mountain, Colorado. In 2024, the Golden Eagle for Overall Environmental Excellence went to Arapahoe Basin.
ForeverProject 2030: The Framework Behind the Award
The Summit’s sustainability program operates under the banner of ForeverProject 2030 — a commitment formalized in 2021 as part of parent company Boyne Resorts, targeting net-zero operational emissions across all operations by 2030.
The ForeverProject targets five interconnected goals: net-zero emissions through 100% clean electricity and electrification of buildings and equipment; increased diversion of waste from landfill through composting and recycling; stewardship of the surrounding ecosystem through wildlife habitat protection and water conservation; using the resort’s business voice to advocate for climate policy at local, regional, and national levels; and investing in the wellbeing of both team members and the broader community. What makes the program notable is not just its ambition — many resorts have published net-zero pledges — but the specific, measurable, operational steps being taken to get there.
Rethinking Construction From the Ground Up
At the heart of the award-winning effort is a new, comprehensive sustainability strategy focused on lift construction, beginning with the Wildside project and continuing with the Edelweiss lift replacement. Judges were specifically impressed not by what was built but by how it was built — a systems-based approach treating energy use, materials handling, waste management, and building performance as a single integrated challenge rather than separate boxes to tick.
The results at the Wildside Realignment Project at Summit West are concrete. The team diverted over 95% of project waste from landfills, with 10 tons of materials reused or repurposed, 88.33 tons of scrap metal recycled, and 93.1 tons of construction materials recycled.
The work included new lift house procedures with enhanced heating envelopes and improved energy efficiency; renewable diesel in heavy construction equipment; and systematic waste diversion at every stage of the project.
At the off-grid Edelweiss summit lift house, new insulation has reduced propane use by 10,800 gallons per season. Across a mountain with over 140 buildings, that kind of per-building improvement, applied consistently, compounds significantly.
Cleaner Fuel, Quieter Machines
Heavy construction equipment is now fueled with renewable diesel — specifically R99 — reducing tailpipe emissions by approximately 50% and saving nearly 30 metric tons of CO₂ during the Wildside project alone, using 6,000 gallons across the project. The achievement was featured on the cover of the NSAA Spring 2025 journal.
The resort is also expanding its fleet of Pistenbully 600 E+ hybrid snow groomers which, according to the resort, produce 20% less noise, 20% fewer CO₂ emissions, and consume 20% less fuel than conventional groomers. Spot a green snowcat on the mountain? That’s one of their hybrids at work.
Waste as a Resource
Perhaps the most creative element of The Summit’s approach is what happens to infrastructure when it is removed. When a lift is replaced, the chairs are not scrapped — they are sold, with proceeds going directly to the local community. The Wildside project raised over $70,000 from chair sales, distributed to two local fire districts, three community schools, Outdoors for All, The Service Board, and the Washington State Ski and Snowboard Museum.
Old lift towers and components have been repurposed as terrain park features — rails, tubes, and park elements riders can use on the slopes today. The Edelweiss replacement will continue this approach.
The on-mountain composting program, launched in 2022, uses a BioCoTech industrial composting machine to reduce waste, cut truck trips to the mountain, and create a full-circle solution providing compost resources for local farmers.
The Broader Program
LED lighting upgrades are rolling out across the lift network, with the Holiday quad, Central Express quad, Silver Fir Express quad, Sessel triple, and Wildside quad all now LED-lit. The Summit has joined the NSAA Climate Challenge, committing to measure, report, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and has partnered with Leave No Trace to educate guests about responsible outdoor recreation.
What the Award Actually Means
The Golden Eagle for Overall Environmental Excellence is not awarded for the best single initiative or the most ambitious pledge. It recognizes the broadest, most holistic, and most measurable approach to sustainability across an entire operation.
For a mid-size regional resort competing against larger destination mountains with bigger budgets, the award carries particular weight. It suggests the path to sustainability leadership in the ski industry does not require the scale of Vail or Alterra — it requires the discipline to treat every construction project, every piece of old equipment, and every building on the mountain as an opportunity to do things differently.
