— By Andru Shively — 

The world’s glaciers are melting, and at an ever-accelerating rate. The wool can no longer be pulled over our eyes when faced with this reality – but might we pull it over the ice itself?

For the last two decades, one approach to slowing the melt in the Swiss Alps has been to fit patches of glaciers with geotextile covers that reflect solar radiation and limit heat exchange. Now, Swiss non-profit the Summit Foundation (Vevey) is collaborating with the University of Lausanne to investigate sheep’s wool as a renewable, biodegradable insulation alternative to the conventional polyester- and polypropylene-based covers. The latter can release microplastics into the snow and ice as they degrade through weathering, in turn contaminating the water cycle.

Between June and September 2026, two 10 m² prototype wool covers were installed alongside a geotextile cover on Glacier 3000 atop the Diablerets, with measurements taken every two weeks. Although the data still requires analysis, initial observations reportedly indicate that the wool covers provide comparable protection to their synthetic polymer-based counterparts, likewise withstanding exposure to the mountaintop elements.

While promising, geotextiles themselves currently only cover 0.02% of Swiss glacier surface area and even on a larger scale would remain a limited solution to long-term glacier retreat, according to the Summit Foundation.

That said, doesn’t every snowman deserve a wool coat, while they’re still with us?