Notes From the Ski Climate Summit, Part 2
Tracking ski performance, recycled carbon, the valley of death, and more.
This is Part 2 of a short series about the Ski Climate Summit, hosted by Atomic, POW Europe, and WSN.
Read Part I here: The Ski Industry’s Climate Reality.
When does a ski actually lose performance?
One of the most interesting sessions for me came from Yessica Kurock and Alexis Lussier Desbiens at the University of Sherbrooke. Their lab has been building out standardized testing equipment and methodologies for skis. Basically, we as skiers love talking about ski performance and nitty gritty characteristics (flex, stiffness, edge hold, durability, etc) but we don’t really have a consistent way of quantifying those things. For a surprisingly long time, everything has been mostly subjective assessment, aka someone at Blister gives the ski a nice bend and tells you what the flex feels like.
Sherbrooke’s lab has developed devices that test skis in a much more scientific manner and can track actual base characteristics and performance loss over time. They tested their mathematical models against Blister scores and found only 10-15% error in describing ski feel, which is impressive for a purely mechanical measurement (and compared against subjective, if trusted, opinions). A lot of this work has been captured at https://soothski.com, where they offer a detailed comparator of skis they’ve tested. It’s a bit raw on the design and UX, but cool to look at if you’re interested in figuring out what exactly about a pair of skis you like, and what other skis might have similar characteristics.
But, what really caught my attention was the research survey on ski usage that Kurock has been conducting. She collected responses related to ski use and replacement from 1,217 skiers and 130 rental shops across 41 countries, covering nearly 180,000 skis in total. A few standout stats:
Rental shops replace 68% of their economy skis for cosmetic damage. Not because the skis lost performance or because they broke down performance-wise. But because the topsheet looks beat up. Which, makes sense on the surface. It’s probably easier to rent skis that don’t look overly used, regardless of performance.
Consumers, on the other hand, often replace based on a perceived loss of performance or just plain wanting something new. For Alpine skis, 46% replaced their skis because of “performance loss” and 42% to access new, better technology. For more intensive activities like touring, freeride and park, broken skis are a much stronger driver of replacement, with performance loss at a slightly lower rate.
I asked Kurock if they had data showing whether the replaced skis had actually lost performance. Not quite yet–that would require testing and re-testing skis over time alongside surveys, and they don't have the capacity right now. But if I had to guess, most consumers use "performance loss" as a convenient way to justify a new pair of skis. We're not actually that good at knowing when our skis stop performing and when we just want something new.
This opens up real questions for circularity. If cosmetic damage is a top driver of rental replacement, could we design more durable topsheets? Replaceable ones? If a ski has years of useful life left, how do we shift end-of-life behavior toward reuse instead of storage units and landfills? A significant amount of the shops surveyed said that their end-of-life solutions for rental skis involved mostly, often, or sometimes being trashed.
Designing for disassembly
Simon Jacomet from Jacomet Ski and Gian Reto Marugg from Covestro demonstrated SkiCycle+, a new system that uses thermoplastic adhesive films instead of epoxy resin to make skis. Epoxy is permanent; once a ski is pressed, those layers are fused together and can’t be separated into anything useful, which makes things difficult/impossible to re-separate for recycling. The thermoplastic adhesive is reversible. You can heat the ski, bend it, and the layers will come apart cleanly. That means each component can enter its own recycling stream.
The same property could theoretically also enable mid-life repair. If 68% of rental ski replacements are cosmetic, could there be a system where you can pull off a damaged topsheet and press on a new one without replacing the whole ski?
But, the distribution mechanisms in the ski industry aren't designed to take skis back or reprocess them. The technology is brand new, and it still needs to be proven at scale and adopted by manufacturers who have no particular incentive to switch from epoxy.
Grand Massif’s 2035 Plan
One of the most impactful presentations came from Frédéric Marion, general manager of Grand Massif, a network of resorts in the Haute-Savoie. Marion outlined the resort’s “Resilience 2035” strategy, which actively plans for a 30% reduction in resort capacity due to climate change.
This wasn't a sustainability officer presenting a plan or pilot project. This was the person running the resort saying: I made a decision and this is how we're going to operate moving forward. Grand Massif is modeling significant reductions in skiable terrain and actively stress-testing the business model. There was a contrast between Kitzbuhel’s “We’re testing electric snow grooming machines” and Grand Massif’s “The models look really bad and we’re actively having conversations with local businesses and our community about how we’re planning to shrink the resort to stay responsible and operational”
Multiple attendees I spoke to specifically called out Frédéric’s presentation as a standout, which tells you how rare it is to see that kind of full, committed action is across the industry. I'm hoping to speak with him soon for a deeper dive on the specifics and scope of their plan.
Recycled Carbon Fiber
Fairmat presented their recycled carbon fiber technology, which is production-ready and currently being used in equipment like DPS skis and CAPiTA snowboards. They use aerospace-grade carbon waste and mechanically recycle it without chemicals or high heat, then use AI-driven sorting to keep the output consistent. Fairmat's material produces roughly 3.4 kg CO₂e per kilogram versus 66.7 for virgin carbon fiber.
The Circular Economy
Sarah Dodge, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, presented on circularity and the gaps between idea and implementation (the "valley of death") — R&D funding is available early and proven-at-scale technology attracts big investments, but in between there's a desert where demonstration-stage projects die. Felt particularly relevant given some of the technologies presented during the conference. Her examples of companies with circular success: IKEA reduced carbon emissions by 30% while growing revenue by 20%, and they've shipped over 25 million free replacement parts to extend product life. Arc'teryx's ReBIRD program doubled its business YOY, and is having to limit how many people can visit their centers. And Vinted (resale platform) became the number one clothing retailer in France in early 2025, ahead of Amazon, Shein, and H&M. (They already have a dedicated ski equipment category).
UTMB’s emissions approach
Fabrice Perrin from UTMB presented on their findings and plans around participant travel emissions. For the UTMB Mont-Blanc race, air travel accounts for 86% of the event’s emissions impact, with car travel another 13%. Their latest strategy is giving a 30% bonus on lottery chances for runners who comply with low-carbon mobility requirements, a compulsory carbon contribution from every runner and partner, and proof of residence verification to confirm compliance.
The whole verification process behind this sounds complicated (They mentioned developing AI to check the consistency of travel documents, which I’m a bit skeptical of), but it’s an interesting approach. Is it perfect? No. But they’re trialing it at their biggest, most high-profile event, the one that drives the most emissions, not a smaller race where the stakes are lower.
Who was in the room (and who wasn’t)
The room was full of people with deep technical knowledge and genuine commitment: sustainability officers, product folks, researchers, and material and recycling startups. But it felt like the leadership-level presence was light on the brand side. No C-suite. Nobody from sales, business, finance, etc. Many of the roles who have the most influence over what a company actually makes, and how they make it weren’t there.
That’s not a criticism of the conference. This is one of the (if not the biggest) challenges with all sustainability work. None of these innovative approaches scale until people goes back to their company and convince execs who are probably focused on selling more product year over year that adopting new approaches and technologies are important enough to make meaningful changes to legacy business models.
A few final observations
Most people I spoke with agreed that Decathlon is doing some of the most interesting and significant work in sustainability and circularity right now, but consumers have largely no idea. They're the world's largest sporting goods company by revenue, they've achieved a 13% reduction in absolute carbon emissions, and their circular work is growing. They had an ill-fated foray into the US market, but their running brand Kiprun is making an attempt stateside this year.
The summit is focused on hard goods, and this year they expanded to include federations and more materials tech. But, I’d be interesting in seeing representatives and talks from soft goods in future years. Some of the most ambitious brands on sustainability and circularity (Houdini, Norrona, Patagonia, etc) have strong ties to the ski industry and are primarily soft goods companies. It might dilute the “ski” focus a bit, but the problems are shared.
I think destination marketing organizations would be a meaningful addition to the conference. We heard from Kitzbühel and Grand Massif, and from ski federations, but an interesting bridge might be organizations like Switzerland Tourism, Visit Austria, or more local DMOs. That “one level higher” perspective on the economic impacts of skiing combined with tourism/marketing changes and challenges might be a useful one.
Thanks for sharing the insights