The National Ski Areas Association recently honored the Aspen Skiing Co. with awards in marketing, environmental and safety categories.

SkiCo won the Best Overall Marketing Program award for resorts with 500,000+ skier days. This was achieved by distributing 40,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs to the company’s customers. By distributing these light bulbs, 10 million pounds of CO2 emissions were saved, which is the equivalent to planting 1,435 trees annually or removing 910 cars off the road every year.

“Our goal with this program was to raise awareness about global climate change and to change behavior — changing one light bulb can make a difference,” said Jeanne Mackowski, the company’s vice president of Marketing.

In addition to an environmentally charged marketing campaign, SkiCo was presented  with the Silver Eagle award for environmental education. NSAA cited the “Save Snow” ad campaign, congressional testimony, a Kimberly-Clark boycott and development of solar energy at a utility scale as reasons for receiving this award.

This season, the company ran Save Snow ads in magazines including Outside, Freeskier, Powder and Transworld Snowboarding. The ads featured Aspen/Snowmass Team Athletes Gretchen Bleiler, Chris Davenport and Peter Olenick, and encouraged guests to educate themselves and take action towards climate change.

For the sixth year in a row SkiCo won a NSAA Heads Up national ski area safety award for its Best Employee Involvement and Education program. Several initiatives, both internally and externally, earned the company this award. 

The National Ski Areas Association, headquartered in Lakewood, Colo., is the trade association for ski area owners and operators. It represents 326 alpine resorts that account for more than 90 percent of the skier/ snowboarder visits nationwide. Additionally, it has 400 supplier members who provide equipment, goods and services to the mountain resort industry.