Mt Hutt belongs to family owned and operated tourism powerhouse – NZSki. Our sister mountains are Queenstown’s Coronet Peak and The Remarkables.

At NZSki our primary greenhouse gas emission sources are diesel fuel - used for grooming, transport and building heating - and electricity. Together our three mountains produce approximately 3000 Tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2 only) annually.

How we’re making a difference

Key Initiatives:

- Waste reduction: In 2024, we introduced Sorting Stations to our food/drink outlets, reducing waste to landfill by 42% through better recycling and reusable tableware.

- Transport efficiency: Our carpool priority initiative at Mt Hutt cut guest-related emissions by 30%, saving around 11 tonnes of CO2 per day at our sister mountain.

- Support for conservation: In 2024, we raised $21,700 for the Kea Conservation Trust and $29,800 for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Trust.

- Renewable electricity: We’ve partnered with Meridian Energy to use their Certified Renewable Energy product. This allows us to report our mountain market-based Scope 2 emissions as zero.*

- Carbon credits: We’ve purchased carbon credits from Climate Action Company (formerly Carbonz). Since 2022 we have purchased 1336 tonnes of carbon credits to offset emissions.

*Using the market-based reporting methodology as per the GHG Protocol’s Scope 2 Guidance.

A SAFE PLACE TO LAND

In the past few years there have been a few kea visit Mt Hutt – but we’d love to see more. Kea are the world’s only alpine parrot with very cheeky and inquisitive personalities. We work hard to ensure Mt Hutt is a habitable environment for our native birds. Our revegetation and predator trapping efforts will continue to help support these native birds to visit our mountain regularly. We also work alongside our friends at the Kea Conversation Trust on a number of Kea-related initiatives including banding Kea we see on the mountain.

PEST CONTROL

To help the Kea and other birds, we run an extensive trapping programme which includes 65 traps across several kilometers of the mountain. The trap lines intercept and trap pests such as stoats, possums and rats from wandering up Mt Hutt and threatening bird nests and young. Reducing the number of pests on the mountain also increases food sources for the birds. So far, we have trapped and eliminated over 1,000 pests.

WASTE MINIMISATION

We have been working hard to significantly reduce waste in our café and restaurant through a number of different initiatives. With the introduction of Sorting Station we have reduced waste by landfill by 42%. The method is simple and effective – guests drop their trays at our manned stations and our friendly staff sort the waste. This ensures better recycling, due to less contamination, it also means we don’t lose any of our reusable tableware.

At present 90% of the tableware we use (mugs, plates, knives, forks etc.) are either reusable or home compostable. You won’t see a single-use takeaway cup or sauce packets on our mountains as we outlawed these a few years ago. Each year our teams are working hard to reduce the amount of single use food packaging.

We have also made a commitment to measure the amount of waste that goes to landfill and into our innovative waste technology called an 'ORCA' – this will help us gain better understanding of how we can further successfully make reductions.

The ORCA is a pretty special piece of technology. This machine takes food waste from our café and restaurant and creates the perfect environment for it to break down into a liquid that then gets added to our wastewater system to make its way off mountain. This technology eliminates the need to truck our food waste off mountain.

SNOW ON THE GO

Our snowmaking machines are the best in the business meaning they're energy efficient when using both power and water to make snow. The water used is from our snowmaking reservoirs that are kept topped up via bores that tap into aquifers or streams that are fed by snow melt and run-off.

Our fleet of groomers are equipped with SNOWsat - a sophisticated snow management technology that leverages GPS and accurate ground surveys. SNOWsat continuously measures and displays snow depth in real-time allowing our groomer operators to distribute snow more evenly as they traverse the mountain, and ensure we only make snow where it’s needed. Coupled with detailed machine/operator diagnostics, SNOWsat has enabled a 15% reduction in seasonal fuel and power associated with trail preparation and maintenance.