About us

OUR PRIORITIES

The SMA’s global Alliance of stakeholders within the mountain industry are committed to Measure, Protect and Regenerate the mountain environment.

Measure & Reduce

To scientifically assess the impact of human sports and tourism activities on the mountain environment. Such measurement enables reduction of carbon emissions and negative impact.

Shield protect Protect and Inset

With mountains being the most sensitive environment to climate change and crucial to life on earth, the SMA, guided by science, provides support for initiatives that protect the mountain environment and its people. The SMA identifies insetting opportunities to reduce carbon emissions within the value chain of the sport/tourism industry.

Tree icon Regenerate and Offset

We identify innovative regenerative solutions that serve in the adaptation of sports and tourism activities to climate change impacts within the mountains. We also provide partnerships to compensate for those emissions that cannot be eliminated through reduction and insetting. 

While ski touring in the mountains around Chamonix, three mountain addicts – a leading ocean sustainability campaigner (Anne-Cécile Turner), an international sports lawyer (Ingrid Beutler) and an expert in sustainability and digital communications (Pierre Germeau) – contemplated how to bring the learnings of sustainable innovation from ocean to mountain sports. 

The idea of the Sustainable Mountain Alliance was born.

The SMA was officially launched on World Tourism Day, 21 September 2021. 

CO-FOUNDERS

Anne Cecile Turner

Anne-Cecile Turner

Sustainability Expert

Specialist in systemic change and system-thinking approaches.


Passionate about creating real change in the world.
Leader in Water and Ocean preservation.

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Anne-Cecile Turner

Anne-Cécile is an award-winning sustainability expert. Experienced in driving positive change through international platforms, her work is supported by her impressive qualifications and training from Harvard’s Executive Leadership Program, The Tavistock Institute and WWF. Board Member of Sport and Sustainability International, she has more than twenty years of experience on a global scale in marketing, sponsorship and management, and has worked with some of the world’s biggest names including NGOs, media outlets, sporting events and international brands. In 2011 Anne-Cécile joined the Race for Water Foundation as director.

In 2016, she joined the Volvo Ocean Race as Sustainability Programme Leader to assist the event in its journey to reduce its environmental impact, optimise its sustainability potential and use the power of the race to create positive change on to our ocean’s health. She is a founding member of The Shift and since 2019 is pursuing the innovative sustainability programme developed for the Volvo Ocean Race, now called The Ocean Race. She is creating a platform for change, engaging world leaders, Academia, Institutions, private sector and philanthropists to accelerate ocean health restoration. 

Ingrid Beutler

International lawyer, geographer and political scientist

Dedicated to protecting the mountain environment.
Expert in creating global sustainable change in sport, law and policy.
Facilitator of partnerships, progress and innovation.

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Ingrid Beutler

Ingrid Beutler

Ingrid is an international lawyer who has nearly 20 years’ experience working within international organisations including the International Olympic Committee as Integrity Manager; General Association of International Sports Federations as Director of Social Responsibility and Integrity; United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace; and Deputy Director of the Race for Water Foundation. In 2020 she founded Beutler International Sports Advisory addressing ‘The Ethical Imperatives of Sport’ with global clients including FIFA, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB) and numerous international sports federations and in 2021 joined The Shift eco-system. She is a Board Member of Sport and Sustainability International..

Former elite road cyclist, she holds an international law masters from the Geneva Graduate School of International Studies (LL.M), and law (LL.B) political science and geography degrees (B.A) from Canterbury University, New Zealand and is Associate of the Trinity College of London (A.T.C.L) in solo piano. Ingrid seeks to drive positive change globally, harnessing the power of the sports movement through a specialization in sustainability, integrity and human rights. Dedicated to protecting the mountain eco-system from climate change through responsible choices made today for future generations, cyclist, mountain runner, skier, mountain biker, adventurer, born in New Zealand, based in Switzerland.

Pierre Germeau

Sport Industry specialist

Expert in Sustainability and Digital Communication.
Thinking outside the box since 20 years.
Mountain addict since the last century

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Pierre Germeau

Pierre has been active for 20 years in developing and delivering innovative programs and solutions for the International Sport Community.
From 2002 to 2017 he was involved in the digital development of key sport organisations such as America’s Cup, UEFA, World Rowing and the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique. In 2018, Pierre joined the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) where he leads the development of sustainability tools and initiatives to support the members of the Association (100+ International Sport Federations). This includes the creation of concrete CSR guidelines for global multi-sport games, and the launch of sustainability.sport, a web portal dedicated to sport and sustainability. Pierre is also part of Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI) Executive Team where he takes care of the Sustainable Sport Lab, a programme that focuses on identifying and allocating resources dedicated to bringing sustainability in sport to the next level.

Passionate about mountains, where he walks, skis or climbs with family and friends, Pierre holds an Advanced LL.M in Public International Law and a LL.B from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He also completed the Business Sustainability Management program of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and (CISL) and a GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) training program.

ADVISORS

Sarah Lewis OBE OLY

Global Sports Leader. Expert in Snow Sports working in the industry for 35 years.

Committed to making society better through sport. Olympian in alpine skiing. Passionate about enabling opportunities for future generations to experience the mountains as I have enjoyed.

Ben Lesage

Global Coordinator at Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA)

Passionate about Mountains and the Oceans. Expert in technology and innovation. Worked for the innovation studio of BNP Paribas in San Francisco. 

Cedric Girard

CEO of Global Sports Week 

Supports sport leaders in their positive impact journey. Marketing leadership roles in the sports industry (Nike, Decathlon), consumer goods (Coca-Cola, Unilever) and hospitality (Louvre Hotels). Positive impact projects in Sport, Nutrition, Health and Innovation with MoHo, Schoolab, Fitnext and Publicis Sport.

OUR STRUCTURE

The Sustainable Mountain Alliance is a Swiss based, non-profit association.

Official documents

  • Click here to download the Statutes of our organisation
  • Click here to download Annual Report of 2022 

CONTACT US

Click here to send us an email

SUPPORT US

Sustainable Mountain Alliance (SMA) 
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