Verbier Art Untold Association, the Swiss non-profit organisation that runs the Verbier Art Summit, has an environmental policy that asserts the positioning of the organisation and its activities to fulfill its commitments towards achieving a more sustainable future. 

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The policy outlines the Summit’s environmental values and principles which drive key decision-making and attainable actions also taken during the annual Summit event. 

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Through the Resource Hungry theme—which began in 2020 and concluded in 2022— the Verbier Art Summit shared insights of its expert guests and speakers to a wider audience to encourage and drive positive environmental change and ultimately seek solutions through the medium of art, with the overall goal to drive environmental action. The Summit aims to continue demonstrating its commitment to these ambitions via a meaningful, respected leadership platform, which promotes education and global solidarity, as well as climate awareness through implication of best practices.

Environmental statement

Through leadership, education and advocating global solidarity, the Summit aims to:

• Undertake systematic efforts to promote greater environmental responsibility;

• Reduce overall climate impact where possible;

• Educate greater awareness towards climate action;

• Promote sustainable and responsible consumption; and

• Implicate climate action through communication, dialogue and active engagement with its global community.
   

The Verbier Art Summit implemented standards for adherence by the organisation and its team (via an action plan set-up together with Julie's Bicycle), and aims to collaborate only with partners that similarly comply with sustainable protocols. The Verbier Art Summit is also a Member of the Gallery Climate Coalition, pledging to commit to collectively reduce the visual art sector's carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and achieve near zero-waste practices. 

Summit sustainability and environmental action

As an integral part of our strategy and modus operandi, the Summit is committed to reducing its environmental impact and to continually improve its environmental performance. For this reason, the annual in-person event in Switzerland will be followed by a virtual programme with the purpose of engaging communities globally while minimising the environmental impact of travelling.

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Verbier Art Summit in-person event:

• The Summit favours venues that use low carbon sources; 

• The Summit encourages caterers and local restaurant/hotel partners to provide vegan and vegetarian options favouring locally sourced providers;

• The Summit works towards minimising waste, using a ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ framework to minimise with every event the amount of waste that is produced (this includes reusable tote bags and other non-disposable material for our goodie bags);

• The Summit engages with each venue to ensure that waste from the activities can be recycled as far as possible; and

• Event materials are made from sustainable resources and can be recycled (this includes wooden sign posting and annually returning marketing material).

 

Transportation: 

• The Summit adheres to a responsible travel policy, focussing on less frequent travel and reduction of related emissions (this includes audio and video conferencing as preferred as communication modes to reduce travel); 

• The Summit offers travel alternatives respecting sustainability guidelines, including train travel as the recommended mode of transportation to any destination within 6 hours of travelling time. This applies to both Summit speakers as well as the Summit organisation;

• The Summit organisation uses public transportation, walking and cycling when possible, and does not cover taxi costs to airports, parking costs etc unless Summit material/luggage is involved; and

• For each flight taken by the Summit organisation, including all speaker/journalist/team flights in relation to the annual Summit event, a CO2 offset takes place via Hivos. This compensation contributes to Kenya Biogas Programme (Gold Standard).

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Office organisation:

• The Summit organisation favours co-working spaces: 

  • Zoku in Amsterdam (a Certified B Corporation), and 

  • The Mountain Hub in Verbier;

• The Summit favours digital marketing and communication; and

• Documents, brochures and posters, as well as the Summit publication are printed on recycled paper when possible.