The carbon neutral journey

How did you get connected with the team here at WSP?

Through a contact, I was given the opportunity to give a conference to the board of directors of WSP Canada during a congress in Montreal. I had just become an Olympic medalist, and I shared my skiing journey and the lessons learned along the way with them. I then pitched the idea of a collaboration revolving around reducing the environmental impact of my career and we built the project together from there.

Walk us through what you’ve been working on the team with over the past 3+ years.

Every year, I collect data on all my travels related to my sports (distance, mode of transportation, destinations, accommodation). The team at WSP then calculates the CO2 emissions related to my travels and accommodation. We then sit together and look at how we could reduce some areas of emissions. We compensate the rest through carbon credits. We also create a baseline scenario for comparison. It represents the carbon emissions that I would have generated if I had made no efforts to reduce them. By comparing my emissions to the baseline scenario, we can directly relate actions to data, which I think is super interesting!
 

 
Last year, we extended the data collection to all the athletes and staff participating in the world cup tour for aerial skiing. The team at WSP then calculated the CO2 emissions related to the whole circuit of competition, and we suggested an optimized calendar of competition which would reduce the CO2 emissions of the tour. The report was presented to FIS (International Skiing Federation) and will be used in the coming years to minimize the environmental impact related to athlete and staff travel on the world cup circuit.

Your carbon neutral journey has received some publicity along the way. Has that led to other athletes reaching out to you to learn more?

Yes, I have had multiple athletes reach out to me to ask questions about my project with WSP. Most of them were interested into doing a similar analysis in their sport and I was able to help them to start the process. I was also offered the opportunity to join the Protect Our Winters Canada athlete alliance which put me in contact with amazing athletes and advocates from across the country who were very interested in my project and from whom I am learning a lot!

As you prepare from Milan-Cortino, what’s changed in the way you approach it based on your work on becoming caron neutral?

From the way I commute to training, to my diet and consumption, my lifestyle has changed. But most importantly, this project opened the doors for me to learn about climate action and to think about my sports career for something bigger than my performance. I understood the importance of my platform and the role sports can play in the cultural shift necessary for broader environmental action. Through my travels all around the world for competitions, I started paying attention to how a country’s values and governance impacts their relationship with environmental protection. I think it made me more aware of the world I live in. Before, my sports journey was more oriented towards my personal goals. Now, I have more perspective which allows me to appreciate even more the incredible opportunity competing for Canada is while acknowledging that my performances can be used to carry my values as well. I have been in touch with the power of sports in the past four years and I see my career as the most amazing opportunity to leverage it for the greater good. 

What’s next in your journey? What comes after the Olympics?

I don’t know haha.

I will probably be around for another Olympic cycle in aerials. I certainly want to pursue my journey in climate action. I don’t know how exactly. I would love to continue the partnership with WSP and see what else we can achieve by combining my skiing career with WSP’s experts. We will see, but I am still this ambitious young woman, and I am sure it won’t be boring.