The Olympics – Green or Bad?

The Olympic Games brings together nations and competitors from all corners of the world, binding all together in the ideals of sport. But however noble, an event as large as the Olympics has the potential for significant environmental impacts - thousands of people travelling from all over the world, combined with the heavy construction required to develop the games’ infrastructure can make quite an ecological dent.

Worse still, in many places heavy traffic and additional stress placed on local infrastructure threatens to exacerbate existing environmental concerns. With the possibility of some athletes wearing face masks to avoid inhaling excessive pollution, Beijing is working hard to improve its air quality ahead of the games, even going so far as to close 10% of the city’s petrol stations and fitting the remainder with devices to prevent escape of petrol fumes whilst motorists fill up.

The International Olympic Committee has warned that some events may even have to be postponed if Beijing’s notorious smog is deemed to thick, and similar concerns have been voiced over the London Olympics due to be held in 2012.

But what are the benefits, and do they outweigh the costs?

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The biggest, and most tangible benefit brought by the games is the investment and the possibility to develop new infrastructure which continues to benefit local residents long after the games have moved on. With an increasing focus on environmental issues as a core part of the games’ preparation, local populations will benefit from state of the art in environmentally friendly development.

Specific examples of ecologically forward looking Olympic investments include:

• Lithium battery-powered busses as part of integrated car-free transport designs
• Diverse energy and water saving technologies, such as ground source heat pumps and rainwater storage and reuse for local irrigation and toilet flushing
• Extensive use of recycled materials during construction
• Reclaiming and redevelopment of ecologically damaged brown-field sites

In addition, the Olympic Committee have pledged to calculate all carbon emissions such that they can be mitigated through offset schemes. Whilst not an ideal solution, offsetting at least goes some way to compensate for unavoidable emissions.

With the best and most environmentally intentions in the world, the Olympic games will not escape having a significant environmental footprint. However, the critical ant point is that the modern Olympics demonstrates to the world not only the ideals of sport, but those of environmental principles too.

Sources and further reading:

Image courtesy of Flickr

BBC, Grist, The Daily Telegraph

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