At first glance, Werfenweng is one of those delightful mountain towns that anyone familiar with the European Alps will recognise. Located in the heart of Austria's Tennengebirge range, around 45km from Salzburg, it is barely a few hundred properties strewn about the foot of an expansive valley, and dwarfed by snow-covered mountains. I arrive in bright sunshine to be met by a series of paragliders sweeping down into a meadow of snow. Looking up to a cerulean sky more than 2,000m above, I spot a dozen or more gliders catching the thermals. As well as being a near-perfect location for paragliding, Werfenweng is also an intimate, family-oriented skiing and snowboarding area. It will surprise few people that Werfenweng's main industry is tourism. In a way it appears to be entirely unexceptional.
Except it isn't. Werfenweng is one of only two places in the Alps (the other is Arosa in Switzerland) that offers carbon-neutral holidays. For a number of eco-conscious travellers, this will immediately set the pulses racing. Equally, for many, the thought of a carbon-neutral holiday might set alarm bells ringing, manifesting images of paying over the odds, tiresome journeys on public transport and a lack of independence caused by restrictions on car use. But for those of the latter persuasion, Werfenweng could come as a surprise.
Werfenweng is a member of the Alpine Pearls organisation, a project that seeks to promote sustainable tourism in the Alps, the central focus being to combine great sights with environmentally friendly transport initiatives. Today, 24 communities from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and Slovenia are involved. The result, in Werfenweng at least, is something approaching a model sustainable tourist destination, where sustainability does not have to come at the expense of a great holiday.
I am staying at Wood Ridge, a group of five new Canadian-style wooden chalets. Located above the town and hemmed in by mountains on three sides, each chalet offers superb panoramic views of the whole area, most impressively the jagged Brandstätter Riedel mountain ridge opposite. My chalet features two spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms, a log-burning fire in the living room, a fitted kitchen and a balcony to take in those views. To set visitors up for the day, a breakfast basket comprising meats, cheeses, jams, yogurts, breads, teas and milk is delivered from the local farm to the doorstep at 7.30am.
Wood Ridge is only a few metres from a gentle ski slope for children and a little further from a beginners' ski slope and ski school. A ski lift takes more adventurous visitors 1,834m up to Bischlinghöhe ridge for skiing or paragliding. With 25km of easy, medium and difficult slopes, skiing at Werfenweng is neither extensive nor particularly taxing. But many visitors are attracted here by the distinct lack of hustle and bustle associated with some more illustrious, over-run ski resorts in the Alps.
The chalets and the ski school are owned by Alois Schwarzenberger, a ski instructor born and raised in the town, along with his Australian wife, Carolyn. They are fully paid-up members of Werfenweng's concept of "soft mobility" (Sanfte Mobilität, or Samo), the most advanced project in the Alps for environmentally friendly travel.
I wander over to the tourist office, which doubles as an Alpine museum, in the town centre. I hand over my train ticket, the all-important evidence that my journey to Werfenweng was made by rail. In return, I receive the magic card that allows me entry into the world of soft mobility. My credit-card-sized Samo pass opens the door to a world of cross-country skiing, snow-shoe wilderness walks through stunning countryside, and, best of all, a 6km toboggan run down an adjacent valley.
Soft mobility works by encouraging visitors to give up their cars in exchange for well-organised transport options. Visitors who travel to Werfenweng by car, for example, are encouraged to hand over their keys to the local tourism office for the duration of their stay and, in exchange, they receive a Samo card. At its simplest, the card allows access to a free taxi service, useful in the dark winter months for trekking back up the valley road to Wood Ridge after visiting one of the town's restaurants. It also grants free use of equipment for cross-country skiing and the other activities mentioned above, as well as a horse-drawn sleigh ride and even a lama trekking adventure.
In addition, a fleet of Werfenweng Grasshopper biofuel cars – powered by "meadow grass" – are available to rent at 10 cents/km with the card, and in summer there's a range of free electric bikes, such as Segways and E-scooters. There are buses laid on to other ski and snowboarding areas in the locality, while there are also weekly bus excursions to Salzburg and Hohenwerfen castle.
The co-operation of the town's businesses has been integral to the project's success. Initially, explains Dr Peter Brandauer, mayor of Werfenweng and president of Alpine Pearls, just a handful of Werfenweng businesses were involved in the early stages. Today, "around 80% of available guest beds" in Werfenweng are members of the scheme and around 25% of its annual 194,000 overnight guests arrive by train.
All this, however, should not give the impression that Werfenweng is some kind of sustainability nirvana. The scheme is far from perfect, as Brandauer admits. Alpine Pearls works with ClimatePartner to invest in projects to balance the inevitable carbon footprint of anyone wishing to take a carbon-neutral holiday. And some guests with overly high expectations express their disappointment that, for example, the town has "too many roads" and "too many cars". Most significantly, there is the immutable contradiction between winter sports (energy-gorging snow-making machines and ski lifts) and sustainable tourism.
Brandauer agrees, but points out that the town's "new ski lift has paid for the new snow-making machines because they use so much less energy than the old ones". Nevertheless, he is also at pains to point out that though Werfenweng is home to Austria's largest solar-power plant, which feeds the national grid, the town itself needs to increase its overall energy use from sustainable sources.
In light of the central contribution skiing makes to the Alpine economy, it is Brandauer's view on winter sports that seems most radical: "In the future, skiing must become less important. We need to find alternatives. The summer must become more important for tourism." This, then, represents one of the biggest challenges to the current unsustainable Alpine tourism model.
Sitting in my chalet beneath the mountain, with the valley spread out before me, it can be tempting to romanticise the Alps in a way that can be blinding to its very real problems. Werfenweng doesn't get everything right and it is certainly not a panacea for the inherent contradiction that exists between mass travel and sustainability. The town is, however, evolving into a model from which other Alpine communities can take inspiration.
Paul Wheatley is the author of Munich: from Monks to Modernity (Volk Verlag, £15.77)
Essentials
Prices at Wood Ridge chalets start at £206 per night per chalet (woodridge.at). Carbon-neutral holiday offers are available to visitors arriving by train. A single to Salzburg from London with Deutsche Bahn starts at £104. Online booking between the UK and Salzburg is not possible, so contact Deutsche Bahn in the UK for tickets (bahn.de). Regional tickets can be bought at Salzburg main station for the trip to Werfenweng (oebb.at). Co-ordinate your arrival with Werfenweng tourist office and a taxi will pick you up from Werfenweng station and take you to the resort (werfenweng.org)
