Going Green

Our Story

Massanutten Mountain is a part of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. Massanutten Resort sits on 6,000 acres and operates year-round offering all season outdoor recreation. Living in partnership with the mountain has been at the core of our company since its foundation. But we have recently started to critique our impact and begin to strategize ways to reduce our emissions, waste, and consider how to become more energy efficient- striving to live more harmoniously with the mountain.

These efforts accelerated with the formation of our Sustainability Committee during the summer of 2021. This committee consists of employees all across the Resort to take into account the many different perspectives.

Partners

Virginia Green Travel Alliance: Launched in 2007, Virginia Green Travel provides recognition opportunities and resources for all sectors of the hospitality industry. Massanutten Resort received a 2024 Virginia Green Travel Star Award for Green Attraction of the Year.

NSAA (National Ski Area’s Association): Established in 1962, the NSAA is a leading organization for guiding sustainable mountain-inspired recreation. The NSAA provides a framework for ski area sustainability, allowing ski areas to identify their key action items, improve their operational efficiency, and advocate for climate action through the Sustainable Slopes Badge Program. So far, we have earned the Sustainable Slopes Endorser, Climate Action, and Climate Advocacy Badges.

NSAA Climate Challenge: Massanutten Resort’s future is reliant on preserving the local ecosystem and community. In 2021, we joined 35 other ski areas by participating in the NSAA’s Climate Challenge. Through this program, we inventory and track our carbon emissions and are given guidance with not only reducing our harmful emissions but also participate in advocacy to use our voice in the larger environmental conversation- all working towards our larger sustainability goals. Since 2012, NSAA has offset 350,742 MTCO2e of ski area’s GHGs! 

• We aim to reduce our carbon emissions by 15% of our 2021 emissions by the end of 2025.   
• Read the full 2025 Annual Report here. 
• Read the full 2024 Annual Report here. 
• Read the full 2023 Annual Report here. 
• Read the full 2022 Annual Report here. 

Energy Efficiency

Solar

We have three solar arrays across the Resort!

The Woodstone building is home to our check in center, Woodstone Recreation, and VA BBQ and Pizza. This solar array is about 139kW and produces 185,000 kWhs of electricity, enough to offset about 15% of the facility’s usage. This is the same as about 527,066 miles driven by an electric car. This array started producing energy in September of 2022.
Check out the solar dashboard to see the solar production here!

The Laundry building is where we do all of the Resort’s laundry. The solar array on the resort's Laundry building is about 160kW and produces 192,000kWhs of electricity, enough to offset 45% of the facility’s usage, and equivalent to powering about 18 homes each year.  This array started producing energy in early October of 2022.
Check out the solar dashboard to see the solar production here!

The WaterPark ground mount array consists of 2,700 panels and covers about 23% of the WaterPark’s energy usage. This array started producing energy in December of 2023.

Check out the solar dashboard to see the solar production here!

EV Charging Stations

Charge your electric vehicles for FREE at Massanutten Resort. At the Resort, you will find multiple 30-amp EV chargers- two at Massanutten Fitness & Rec Club, and two at The Market.

Ski Area Sustainability

Making our own snow is what gives Massanutten Resort consistent winters, ensuring that we have snow coverage from December to March, since we unfortunately cannot rely on natural snowfall. The snowmaking process uses a lot of energy, so we have focused on the following projects to reduce our energy use in our snowmaking operations: 
Low Energy Snow Guns: With our ski area expansion over the past three years, we have added over 150 HKD low energy snow guns and 40 fully automatic fans to make snow on the new slopes.   

LED Lighting: All of the lights on our ski area are being transitioned to LED, helping make our night skiing more energy efficient. When all of the metal halide lights have been swapped with LED lights, it will save us about 41,000 kWh per year. 

Water Conservation

At Massanutten Resort, we are conscious of the water we use, and we use a lot of it!

Virginia winters are unreliable for fresh snowfall. In order to have a consistent ski/snowboard season with snow coverage from December through March, we rely on snowmaking. This requires lots of water, so we have created a system where we collect as much rainwater and runoff as possible to use in the snowmaking process. Painters Pond, Woodstone Golf Pond, and Quail Run Creek are used for snowmaking.

Waste Reduction

Recycling

Around the Resort, you will find recycling stations with Bear Safe pre-sorted recycling bins. Our in-house recycling team collects the recycling regularly and gets it to our community partners.

Although we do not have bins in the rooms, each condo association has at least one recycling station. To find the closest recycling station to where you are staying, please click on the below name of the condo association you are staying at to view a map that indicates the closest recycling station.

Massanutten Resort has officially joined Clean the World to recycle soaps in our hotels!

Clean the World’s purpose to make the world a better place is brought to life in part via its Global Recycling Program, diverting soap bars and plastic amenities (which the hospitality industry would otherwise discard) from landfills and manufacturing new soap bars.

By doing so, Clean the World helps reduce pollution, save water, and decrease the carbon footprint of thousands of hotel partners globally, while improving the lives of women, children, and communities worldwide by donating the new soap bars to global NGOs, such as The WASH Foundation (an evolution of Clean the World Foundation).

Supply Chain

Massanutten Sources Sustainable Rental Equipment

Nitro strongly believes that implementing small initiatives, such as eliminating plastic in our packaging, material choices, built-to-last designs, and now offsetting our climate emissions, can significantly improve our product‘s overall quality and longevity while being kinder to Mother Earth. Our partnership with Climate Partner enables us to assess our carbon footprint, identify areas for improvement and localize our improvement efforts while being able to act instantly by offsetting 100% of the climate emissions created through our bindings life cycle.

Phasing Out Plastic  

Massanutten Resort is working hard to reduce single use plastic. In our retail locations, you’ll find that we now offer water for purchase in an aluminum container. The process of recycling aluminum is tremendously efficient, and aluminum is infinitely reusable!

Sustainable Gear

Our ski patrol and bike park team proudly wear jerseys and sweatshirts made from 100% recycled material. 

Leave ‘Nutten Behind Campaign

The goal of the “Leave ‘Nutten Behind” Campaign is to encourage people to carry out their own trash and take a moment to grab any trash they see. 
Guests, employees, and ambassadors can help by encouraging people to participate in this campaign by sharing the importance of picking up any trash outside of designated waste receptacles.  

Spring 2025 Leave ‘Nutten Behind Resort Clean-Up

A successful team-building morning, departments collaborated to make a positive impact on the community.

• Approximately 35 bags of trash were cleaned up across the resort
• Approximately 70 volunteers

Ski Area Sustainability

Recycling Used Motor Oil: Using the used motor oil for our waste oil heating furnace that is used to heat the snowmaking maintenance building in winter.

Recycling on the Slopes: You can locate recycling bins and waste receptacles at the top of lift 5, top of lift 6, and at Mid-Mountain Grill. Please help keep our mountain clean by leaving ‘nutten behind during your adventure.

Education

Did you know that Massanutten offers sustainability field trips? So far in 2025, we have offered hands-on environmental education to over 100 students! Students of all ages have the opportunity to learn about our solar panels, snowmaking systems, and the natural resources that surround us.

Through these fieldtrips, students will become aware of current environmental issues, explore problem-solving, and engage in solutions to help improve the environment. As an outdoor recreation area, we feel that it is important to discuss how environmental issues impact our resort operations.

If you are an educator who is interested in bringing your classroom to Massanutten Resort, please email gogreen@massresort.com.

News & Media

We are excited to be ushering in this 21st century movement towards reducing our carbon footprints. Next time you visit us, look around and see if you can spot our agent of change, or follow us on facebook for updates on our upcoming projects and festivities!

In the meantime, check out our latest press releases and more below.