Wildlife-friendly forested mountainsides are typically levelled in order to make way for long, flat pistes, artificial snow-making machines drain local water supplies and vast amounts of energy are required to operate chairlifts. Yet most skiers will tell you they love the mountains and consider skiing a way of tuning in to nature.

It’s an irony not lost on Patrick Thorne, the “Snowhunter”, who has been to over 200 resorts over the past 20 years. He has set up a website (saveoursnow.com) to raise awareness of green issues in skiing, in particular the effect of climate change on ski areas and what skiers can do to limit the damage their holidays cause.

Travelling by train is top of Thorne’s recommendations. “It’s the travelling to the resort rather than the resort itself which has the biggest carbon footprint,” he says, recommending skiers going to the Trois Vallées in the French Alps – the world’s largest ski area – use Eurostar’s dedicated services to Bourg St Maurice or Moutiers (eurostar.com). He also advises skiers to try cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing and ski-touring, which aren’t dependent on large groomed slopes and ski lifts.

The most environmentally-friendly resorts are listed on The Ski Club of Great Britain’s Green Resort Guide (skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/resorts/greenresorts), which rates over 200 ski resorts on their environmental credentials. North American ski resorts lead the way, particular Aspen and Jackson Hole in the US and Sun Peaks in British Columbia, while in Europe, Lech in Austria comes top.

This article, by Richard Hammond, was first published in the Guardian.