Cleaning up for a greener planet

Here at KISC, we try our hardest to have the smallest possible impact on the environment, be this through reducing energy use or through the products we buy. Having over 12,000 guests staying with us every year we are in a unique position to make a real difference by changing our actions, and being a friendly role model for all. One big way we help reduce our effects on the environment is by using eco-friendly cleaning products. I spoke to Benny Hygiene Business Unit Manager at vanBaerle, the company who make the eco-friendly cleaning products we use, to find out more about the products they make and how they are trying to help the planet.

What motivates you as a company to develop eco-friendly products?
All Cleaning products impact the environment. Considering the actual situation of our planet it is obvious that minimizing this impact is indispensable.
 

What is it that actually defines your products as eco-friendly? Are some products more eco-friendly than others?
The combination of carefully selected raw materials, energy optimized production facilities and processes, and of eco-friendly use of the product. The latter implies product efficiency, economical dosing (e.g. using appropriate dosing tools) and well trained users.


What kind of testing do you put your products through to ensure that they perform just as well as less environmentally friendly ones.
All products are tested in-house in our labs and in the field prior to market introduction. Equivalent performance is essential  for any of our products.

 

How does a company like yours manage to stay eco-friendly and still compete with other companies?
As a Swiss company, our strategy is not based on a cost leadership strategy. In fact we provide a range of products and services which meet our customer’s demands in a sustainable manner. Individual consulting, intensive training and eco-friendly products are the key elements of this approach.

If you could get the swiss government to pass one new law to help the environment, what would it be and why?
Instead of adding a new law, we would suggest to have Switzerland to spend substantially more financial resources on eco research and to continue using the tool of an incitement tax on ecological/ non ecological behavior.


What three changes would you suggest people make at home to be more eco-friendly?
Since the key challenge might be different for every person and home, a specific analysis is mandatory. At the end of the day it usually results in reducing the use of non-renewable resources such as petrochemical derivatives and in minimizing carbon dioxide emission.

 

KISC too shares this passion for the environment, and we hope that you are inspired to help save the planet during your stay with us!

Pete (UK)

ECO Assistant

Of Mountains and Mars Bars

                              

“The mountains are calling and I must go” is a familiar line by preservationist Jon Muir to all Americans. Muir, as much he adored the American west and wildlife, would have also fallen in love with these, the alps of Switzerland. The story of the mountains have an effect as grandeur as the carvings they create but yet have much humble beginnings. In order to have a river, one must have a trickling stream. This KISC Eco Blog will explore the mountains, snow and avalanches of the Alps compared to that of my home in the western North America.

                While they stand lifeless, all mountains start with explosive beginnings. The Alps themselves were formed over 50 million years ago when the African tectonic plate slammed into the Eurasian plate. Think of it as two candy bars, Africa in this example being an old fashion Snickers and Europe a Mars bar. Africa’s strong nuggety and peanut mass is not match for Europe’s soft inner. As they collide, the Snickers apply more force and bend the Mars bar northerly. That is why most of the North Faces in the Alps, such as the Eiger, are notoriously steep. Unlike the candy bars though, the Eiger lacks a sugery core, instead igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Much less delicious indeed, but important in the start of our culinary allegory.

                          

 

                While the mountains, or candy bars, might differ little from continent to continent, it is the snow that is truly the different factor. Snow in this case is the sugar or frosting we will throw on top of our candy bar. The white sugary mass in my native home of Interior Alaska is just that, like sugar. Lacking lots of water in the snow crystals, the snow at home is very dry and is much like pouring sugar on the Mars-Snickers collision. Sugar snow does not bond together and creates sluff or loose snow avalanches, similar to sand dunes. This snow creates smaller avalanches that are less destructive. This differs from the snow in the Swiss Alps around Kandersteg that create slab avalanches. Because of more water from the nearby Mediterranean ocean, the snows in the Alps stick together like frosting. Also like cooled frosting, its creates slabs, or chucks that break away at the top of the mountain, bringing thousands of pounds of snow, ice, debris and none happiness to the valleys below. These are much more large and violent but is the reason why the Swiss protect with constant surveillance, snow fences, and manually triggered avalanches. It may look pretty, but the frosting is not delicious when it comes down on top of your head.

                We finally come towards the closing but the most important part of our mountain and candy adventures. Glaciers.

Glaciers are moving rivers of ice built up overtime over time by consolidating and melting snow. Lets take those Mars and Snickers bars, and in the middle of the folds poor lots of frosting. Heat and cool the frosting repeatedly, let gravity take control and let bake for a few 1000 years. The glacier of frosting slowly start to carve out the sides of valleys and into what are called U-shaped Valleys, much the Gastental here in Kandersteg or Yosemite Valley in California, United States.

                                             

 

 

This differs from V-Shaped valleys that are carved out my rivers. Like poring milk down our candy bars, it is less ground moved on the whole, like the Ueshental where our KISC upper hut is located.

                                              

 

 

                The similarities and differences between the KISC mountains and that of my home are diverse yet on the whole not at all. I beg all to pick up their rucksack, a good pair of boots and maybe a few Mars Bars, and explore the mountain ecology around Kandersteg. They are something that never visually dull with time, yet physically speaking, do. To sum, American author Normal Maclean said that “eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the worlds great flood and runs over the rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops.” Timeless like the mountains in my life.

Tad (US)

STS Summer 2013

                                              

Alpine agriculture

Alpine agriculture

 

Having grown up and worked on a farm in England, seeing the differences with the Swiss way of farming fascinates me.

Firstly, the scale of the agricultural operations here are distinctively smaller than those back in England. In the winter, the farmers live in Kandersteg but as spring and summer progress, they move to higher altitude in the Kandertal, Gasterntal or Ueschinental. The reasons for moving are predominately weather related due to the extreme seasonality – in winter snow covers most of the hillsides and avalanches create danger so the village proves more suitable. As snow starts to melt, grass starts to grow. In higher regions, the grass is exposed to more sunlight so photosynthesises quicker. Nutritious and mineral-rich alpine plants grow higher up, improving the condition of livestock and quality of their produce.

The animals themselves differ greatly from English stock. The Simmental cows, a breed that originates from the Bernese Oberland, are used for both diary and beef. Their young are renowned for rapid growth, and their meat has a strong, flavoursome taste.

 

 

Whilst hiking you’re likely to find some rather large, docile, woolly creatures nearby the path, these are Valais Blacknose sheep (to locals, known as Walliser Schwarznasenschaf). There are also lots of domesticated goats dotted around the mountains.

 

 

For all the tractor enthusiasts out there, Switzerland offers lots of the vintage kind. There’s no need for new, large, expensive, powerful machinery as there’s simply not the space or use for them. Instead farmers use small but effective machinery on their steep land.

A week before I came to KISC we had just finished making our farm’s silage – grass that is cut then stored in covered pits or silos, allowing it to ferment, creating winter fodder for our sheep. When I arrived in Switzerland, the local farmers had also just finished their silage, albeit a much smaller process with most of the grass being collected in by hand. In the last few weeks the farmers have made the most of the sunny weather by making hay – dried grass – another feed for the livestock.

The ecological effect of agriculture is somewhat less in the Swiss Alps than in England. The steep slopes prevent such an extent of soil compaction occurring from the grazing animals. The grazing itself is also beneficial for the environment as shorter grass lessens the likelihood and impact of landslides. Less fossil fuels are burnt by machinery as manpower carries out a greater percentage of the work. The land has more time to recover from the impact of grazing as the animal stocking rate is lower and only graze areas in certain seasons.

The balance between agriculture and nature is a key concept of environmental sustainability and at the moment Switzerland seems to have it just right.

Annie Carr (UK)

STS Summer 2013