“Climate protection here and now!” was founded by the community network <link http: www.alpenallianz.org en external-link>Alliance in the Alps together with the universities <link http: www.htwchur.ch en tourism tourism.html external-link>HTW Chur and <link http: www.hsr.ch external-link>HSR Rapperswil, as well as myclimate and<link http: climatop.ch index.php home_en.html external-link> climatop.

As popular tourist destinations, Braunwald, Saas Fee, Sattel and Scuol have all acknowledged the inherent risk from climate change. Together they plan to drive forward the initiative “Climate protection here and now!”. This will mean reducing their own CO₂ emissions and developing attractive, climate friendly offers for guests. As part of this project, which is also supported by <link http: www.seco.admin.ch themen external-link>SECO’s Innotour programme, the companies have developed strategies and mission statements, produced carbon footprints, and designed and realised initial offerings. Sustainable, climate friendly positioning is the long-term goal.

Initial pilot activities in these communities have shown how climate protection can go hand-in-hand with tourist attractions. Braunwald held a regional climate protection day. Sattel developed a completely new tourism mission statement and set up a platform to improve the utilisation and renovation of second homes. Scuol translated the concept of a <link http: www.bike-marathon.com external-link>climate-neutral bike marathon to other events. Saas Fee ran a workshop to gather ideas to be implemented in future.

myclimate, climatop, HSR Rapperswil and HTW Chur bundled their skills to tackle the challenging carbon footprinting process. Above all, this helped identify solutions in the difficult areas of system delineation and data sourcing. All insights developed here will be consolidated into a manual and made available to similar destinations.