Auden Schendler

Auden Schendler is Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, where he works on scale solutions to climate change, including clean energy development, policy, advocacy, and activism. He helped develop the only coal-mine-methane to electricity project in the United States and other pioneering clean energy projects in solar and hydroelectricity. Along with Protect Our Winters, where he served on the board, he is working to mobilize the outdoor industry as a political force like the NRA. Previously a research associate at Rocky Mountain Institute, Auden’s work has been covered in Businessweek, Men’s Journal, Fast Company and Outside, and he is author of the book “Getting Green Done,” which climatologist James Hansen called “an antidote to greenwash.” He publishes widely on climate change, parenting, and the outdoors. Named a “climate innovator” by TIME magazine and a “climate saver” by the EPA, he has testified to Congress and spoken at Starbucks, Google, and business schools at Harvard, MIT, Yale and Dartmouth, as well as to fourth graders and Chilean kayakers. Auden has served on several Governor-appointed boards in Colorado, including the Air Quality Control Commission and the Pollution Prevention Advisory board. Between 2016 and 2020, he was elected to Basalt, Colorado’s town council, and served until 2020. He lives in Basalt with his wife and two children. 

Auden’s forthcoming book, Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul, will be published in the Fall of 2024 through Harvard Business Review Press.