What could sport look like that is more sustainable? And how contemporary are large sporting events? Luisa Neubauer, the face of the German “Friday-Fore Future” movement, tells of a very personal dilemma in the BR24Sport-Podcast “Pizza & Pommes”.
Climate activist Luisa Neubauer is a guest in the current episode of the BR24Sport podcast “Pizza & Fries”. What few knew: The 28-year-old worked as a ski instructor in Tyrol. Here she tells of her experiences what role skiing plays in her life and how hobby skiing fits her fight for more climate protection. Above all, it is about sustainability in sports and with major sports events.
Neubauer and their hobby skiing: “As sustainable as it can be”
“I became a ski instructor to finance skiing,” says the climate activist Neubauer. “As long as I can think, I am only on the slope.” She always felt the alpine skiing as “something insanely magical”. So far so good. But over the years, she also had doubts: more and more gondolas, more and more wider streets and parking spaces – was she still able to reconcile this with her climate knowledge?
“I wondered if I still want that out of climate stations,” she admits. To come to the conclusion: As she makes it – to take the train into the mountains, to spend the night with friends – “This is somehow as sustainable as it can be. Nevertheless you are somehow part of one Problematic ‘tourism industry’.
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Ski sports – the first victim of climate change?
Ski sports and climate protection – that doesn’t necessarily fit well together, at least that’s how the country -wide opinion. Host Felix Neureuther hurries to help Neubauer by saying: “Ski sports are not to blame for climate change.”
Neubauer sees it the same way. She sees skiing as a victim of climate change. “Last year I stood somewhere on the slope and cried because the glaciers melted away opposite.” The winter sport is the first to get under the wheels. Her forecast is that there will no longer be smaller ski areas because of the longing for snow.
Desire for sustainability in the small and large
Finding a form of skiing that can be sustainable, so everyone should “deal seriously and sincerely”, says Neubauer. And of course a sustainable handling of our nature would be desirable on a small and large one. Felix Neureuther thinks that sustainable developments have already taken place in skiing and take place: “A lot happens, even in areas. As far as the energy generation, the lift facilities or snowmaking concern. I see that very positively.”
This was definitely not happening voluntarily. “Why is the industry behind it? Because of an insane pressure because you had to make a lot of noise politically and publicly so that it happens,” argues Luisa Neubauer. In any case, she would not want to trust the benevolence of the sustainability managers of any ski regions.
Neubauer: Organizer of the Olympic Games should adapt
A good example was the Alpine Ski-WM 2025 in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, says Neureuther: “With recycling, also public transport and all things. They were really great”.
Nevertheless, sustainability is not as big as it should be, Neubauer warns. She also demands that the hosts of the Olympic Games adapt to the “present of reality”. Maybe again in Germany in the future? Neureuther would be a big fan of it.
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Source: BR24Sport in radio 19.02.2025 – 8:55 a.m.
