Alpine winter tourism territories demonstrating an integrated framework for a low-carbon, high-impact and resilient future

Funding: Interreg Alpine Space programme (European Regional Development Fund)*: Total eligible costs: € 2,202,387.85; ERDF grant: € 1,872,029.64; EU funds to ÖAW/IGF: € 261,400.75

Duration: April 2018–April 2021

Lead partner: Les Orres, Frankreich

Coordinator: Andreas Haller

Project team: Annemarie Polderman, Oliver Bender, Domenico Branca, Andreas Cziferszky, Kati Heinrich

Links:
Alpine Space
ÖAW News: "Von Smart Cities zu smarten Alpen"
Toolkit
Twitter
Final report
Article in Die Presse, 8. May 2021 (in German) pdf

Smart Altitude aims at enabling and accelerating the implementation of low-carbon policies in winter tourism regions. Technical solutions for the reduction of energy consumption and GHG emissions in mountain settlements relying on winter tourism today exist, with up to 40% reduction potential. However, key trade-offs are at the heart of their slow uptake: they require stronger and innovative involvement to overpass strategic (goals, priorities, risks), economic (costs, financing) and organizational (partnership, stakeholder involvement) challenges.

Smart Altitude will demonstrate the efficiency of a decision support tool integrating all challenges into a step-by-step approach to energy transition. The approach is implemented in three case study sites and prepares for replication in 20 other tourist settlements in the Alpine Space. The project targets policymakers, infrastructure operators, investors, tourism associations and entrepreneurs organisations. Its outputs are a spatial diagnosis method, an online Smart Altitude Toolkit, Living Labs, a planning model for adaptation strategy implementation, a “replication roadmap” and a network of low-carbon winter tourism regions. The partnership and activities ensure the suitability of the approach across the Alpine Space, promote innovations and skills, and enable policymakers to plan and prioritize measures increasing the resilience of mountain areas.

Eleven project partners from six Alpine countries, led by the municipality of Les Orres, participate in the Smart Altitude project. The Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW/IGF) is the leader of the first work package, which aims to create tools (“Integrated Dashboard”) for an energy transition in Alpine mountain areas that supports the prioritization of low-carbon operations. ÖAW/IGF brings its expertise of developing WebGIS tools to the project. Besides the WebGIS that focuses on situational awareness, the dashboard also includes the design of a monitoring system for actual performance assessment in the Smart Altitude Living Labs (Les Orres in France, Madonna di Campiglio [Pinzolo] in Italy, and Krvavec [Cerklje na Gorenjskem] in Slovenia) and the development of Key Performance Indicators for the optimization of low carbon measures. The Dashboard will be validated in the three Living Labs (WP2) and later on integrated as a module of the Smart Altitude Toolkit (WP3) for policymakers and stakeholders.

  • Municipality of Les Orres (FR) (Lead Partner)
  • Association Européenne des Élus de Montagne (FR)
  • Business Support Centre Kranj (SI)
  • Centre de Recherches Energétiques et Municipales (CH)
  • EDF Electricité de France (FR)
  • Fondazione Bruno Kessler (IT)
  • Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT)
  • Rekreacijsko turistični center Krvavec (SI)
  • Steinbeis 2i (DE)
  • Trentino Sviluppo (IT)
  • UNIMONT, University of Milan (IT)

* This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme