Historical account of environmental initiatives at Olympic Games

A notable turning point in the “greening” of the Games took place in 1993 when the Sydney 2000 Games Bid Committee published the Environmental Guidelines for the Summer Olympic Games before obtaining the right to host the Games of the XXVII Olympiad. These guidelines not only served as a great selling argument by convincing many IOC members to determine Sydney as the host city but also guided much of the Games planning and preparation as well as producing an environmental legacy for all future editions of the Olympic Games (Furrer, 2002). Several environmentally friendly technologies and processes were incorporated into the planning and operations stages such as the widespread use of solar energy at the Olympic Village and low emission public transport.

These Games were used as an innovative platform to showcase some of the latest developments in green technologies; as underlined by the Official Report of the XXVII Olympiad “the construction story of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games was dominated by two aims – the development of world-class sporting venues on a very constrained site and the protection of the natural environment”.

37 Accordingly, the transformation of the Homebush Bay area from a polluted, industrial wasteland to a revitalised complex of venues, wetlands and parklands by the New South Wales State Government is one of the most striking environmental achievements, and legacies, of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games (IOC, 2001). Attempts at a wide consultation process were made with the setting up of the Homebush Bay Environmental Reference Group to provide advice on the remediation programmes at Sydney Olympic Park and surrounding areas. It contained community groups, environmental organisations and academics and technicians. Green groups such as Greenpeace were involved from the early stage of the bid and were then integrated into the overall planning of the Games. The monitoring of the project was achieved through three separate Ecology Programs:

- Program 1 involved the development of an ecology data bank (through geographic information systems), an electronic record of the changing status of the environment at Homebush Bay.

- Program 2 involved determining the condition of rehabilitated lands and providing technical tools and training to enhance their management.

- Program 3 was created to promote community understanding of pollution issues and extend Sydney 2000’s remediation strategy to areas beyond the Homebush Bay site.

Furthermore, environmentalists took an active part in the drafting of the “Environmental Guidelines” adopted by the organising committee. Also, important to note is the involvement of sponsors in the Sydney environmental strategy with several of them adopted green initiatives and showcased them during the Games (Furrer, 2002). Green groups such as Greenpeace and an environmental watchdog called Green Games Watch 2000 encouraged Games sponsors to go over and above their normal procedures in areas such as recycling, waste management, lighting systems and CFC-free cooling systems (IOC, 2001). On World Environment Day 2001 the United Nations awarded Sydney the Global 500 Award for environmental excellence. Even the hard to please green movement gave grudging praise (Furrer, 2002). Indeed, the adoption by the Sydney organisers of the “Environmental guidelines for the Summer Olympics” has established a new and high standard of environmental performance for future mega-events.

One of the critical aspects related to the legacy left were the constructions of sports facilities around the Australian city. A first, and in a long-term, the constructions could appear like a big “white elephant” because in the city there were already stadiums from the private sector.

38 However, although the planning for promoting the games leads to an underutilization of the sports facilities, the social impacts were high, by promoting the sustainability conception and improving a less privileged region (Mataruna, 2018).

The Athens 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Greece presented a well-defined environmental policy, albeit on paper only. According to Girginov and Parry (2005), environmental policy stressed four important elements:

• the location of the Olympic venues was in full alignment with the land use and sustainability plan for the metropolitan area of Athens.

• in all Olympic venues, the post-Olympic use excluded the construction of hotels, offices, private houses, casinos and nightclubs/restaurants (Law 2730/99).

• in all Olympic venues, the number of construction permits was kept very low.

• all temporary constructions for the Olympic Games would be removed at the latest six months following the completion of the Games (included in Law 2819/2000 on the establishment of a private company for the Olympic Village, protection of Olympic symbols and other provisions).

Unfortunately, this clearly articulated, and legally substantiated environmental policy was not implemented properly or with due consideration (Furrer, 2002). Horst (2012) reported that poor planning left the city stuck with paying maintenance bills for poorly designed stadiums that were vastly underused following the Games. Besides, the construction of Olympic facilities did not account of open spaces, which were negligently destroyed instead of being retained as green spaces (Reyes, 2005). Despite these drawbacks, several new Olympic installations support the rehabilitation and upgrade of urban and suburban areas.

Projects such as the construction of the Olympic Village, the Faliron Coastal Front and the Olympic Sailing Centre are among the best examples of interventions which will contribute to a better quality of life for Athenians. Similarly to Barcelona in 1992, Athens is reconnecting its city centre with the sea through the redevelopment of the Faliron Coastal Area, host to manifold Olympic competition venues. Also important to note are the regeneration of Athens’

historical centre and improved accessibility through a new pedestrian link between historical centres should prove to be a significant legacy for the city of Athens.

In any case, the sustainable impact of the Games’ event in the sphere of the environment was not negative in all aspects; while the Games’ impact on energy consumption seemed vague and not clearly traceable, the Games served especially on the issue of transport

39 networks as a strict pressure factor that finally resulted in a massive reengineering of the public transport system and the road network (Tziralis et al. 2008). Thus, it is transport which is likely to become the biggest and most visible Olympic legacy in Athens, improving the rather poor prevailing mobility conditions of most Athenians and the air quality (Furrer, 2002).

The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China catalysed a major project of urban transformation and new infrastructure development. Most of the capital invested in the 2008 Olympic Games was spent on infrastructure that helped shape and fosters greater environmental awareness among the public and was an opportunity to showcase China’s commitment to growing in an environmentally sustainable manner (Aichi Expo, 2005). The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games highlighted several environmental issues, including the city's poor air quality (Busa et. al., 2010). During the bid phase in 2000, Beijing set ambitious goals to improve the city’s environment; the organising committee (BOCOG) and the municipality of Beijing put words into practise with a specific and ambitious environmental master plan.

An initial Environmental Impact Assessment framework had submitted during the bidding stage by Beijing and BOCOG is established its Environmental Management System (EMS) in line with ISO 14001 standards². The goals ranged from addressing air and water quality and waste management to introducing environmental considerations in the development of new infrastructure. As specified in the UNEP environmental report on the 2008 Games, to accelerate the achievement of environmental goals, Beijing decided to move forward the deadlines of several existing environmental targets in the Beijing 'Environmental Master Plan'. Beijing also launched educational campaigns for sustainable development and aim to raise the nation’s environmental awareness. The outcomes became visible also before the Games started through new wastewater treatment plants with waste reduction and recycling schemes at the venues, expanded solid waste processing facilities, increased forestation and green belt areas and an improved public transportation fleet (Konstantaki, 2018). These initiatives were achieved due to cooperation with sponsors on environmental sustainability and dialogue with environmental NGOs (Busa et. al., 2010). The multitude of green initiatives is proving to be a vast legacy of the 2008 Games for the people of Beijing and the whole of China; the catalyst effect of the Games on promoting the city’s sustainability represented a huge opportunity for the world’s most populated country, which is even

2 The abbreviation ISO 14001 identifies a technical standard of the International Organization for

Standardization (ISO) on environmental management systems (EMS) which establishes the requirements of an environmental management system of any organization.

40 nowadays facing rapid development and experiencing the challenges of rapid urban growth and expansion (Furrer, 2002).

Before of going further with the presentation of the two sustainability plans made in London and Rio de Janeiro, a first comparative insight can be showed even including the mentioned cases. Table 2 highlight the most notable environmental initiatives at Olympic Games and their impact (positive or negative).

Table 2.Environmental impact and initiatives of summer Olympic Games (Source: Konstantaki, 2000).

This overview has only the aim of compare effects from environmental actions on cities from the literature and is a simplification of a phenomena more complex which can also affect another dimension such as the economic and social one. Hidden aspect of environmental policies that influence different fields of the sustainability will be dealt after the presentation of the sustainability plans.

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