From the initial planning stages the 2012 London Olympics had sustainability as a core aspect of the games. This was going to be the biggest & best green Olympic and Paralympic Games in history.
So did the London 2012 head of sustainability David Stubbs and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) get to claim this enormous achievement?
According to Germany’s Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) when he visited the Olympic Park in Stratford in April this year, was quoted saying “I witnessed the thoughtful approach to bringing sustainability issues into the planning and development of a mass scale event.”
“Efforts such as the greening of the supply chain, regeneration of an inner city area and bringing energy efficiency measures to local homes, can build the confidence to wider society that sustainability is not theory but infinitely do-able with the policies and technologies available today not tomorrow. Once the Games are over, I look forward to analysing the achievements and lessons learned.” Quoted from Inside the games
From available reports it looks like they have pulled off a sustainable blitz in comparison to previous games. But even though it has been over a month since the close of the event I have not been able to find hard core statistics.
There have been criticisms throughout the event concerning many aspects but as long as the games were more sustainable than previous it has to be a win. The word sustainability explained in Wikipedia “Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from controlling living conditions, to reappraising work practices, or developing and using new technologies that reduce the consumption of resources such as renewable energy technologies.”
The Sydney Olympics set a benchmark for sustainable design and construction which became a template for future Games and has been built on and improved. Sustainable event management is all about continual improvement and of course if this process happens in grand leaps it will have greater benefits. But if not we must learn from our mistakes and strive for better outcomes.
Congratulations must go out to David Stubbs and his team, including the volunteers, for “The biggest & best green events ever!”
So by the time we here on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia host the 2018 Commonwealth Games the information that we will have gathered on the sustainability of Glasgow in 2014 & Rio de Janeiro Olympics will put us in good stead for an extremely green event.
Recently two colleagues and I in the sustainable movement were invited to a meeting with key organisers of the 2018 Commonwealth Games to discuss sustainability of the event. I was very impressed that at this early stage it seems that these practices are high on their priority.
If you can provide sustainable services and products to the 2018 Commonwealth Games please contact me. Greg@climatewave.com
kind regards
Greg Howell
working with the planet
