London Plays Up Sustainable Olympics to Lure Cleantech Industry

Stadiums, transportation, food and souvenir vendors, communications infrastructure … hundreds of elements go into planning the Olympic Games.

From the point of view of London’s economic development agency, Think London, that means hundreds of opportunities to test and showcase sustainable, energy-efficient technologies, products and services.

Perhaps more importantly, the Sustainable Games may be a way to attract green businesses and cleantech companies to London — permanently.

The intention to make these the first Sustainable Games was the foundation, and ultimately the winning component, of London’s bid to host the 2012 Games. The city’s organizing committee committed to setting new standards in sustainability that the rest of the world could follow.

Showcasing sustainability has become a trend for host cities. Vancouver similarly pledged to host a “green” Winter Olympics, and although the unseasonably warm weather at Whistler required that fresh snow be hauled in by helicopter or truck, the Vancouver Organizing Committee still expects to boast the greenest Olympics on record once emissions are tallied. Every venue was built according to Canada’s green-building standards, including the use of low-flow toilets and rainwater catchment; the city also designed and implemented a district-wide energy system that cut down on inefficiencies and wasted energy. Any emissions it couldn’t reduce — namely the 118,000 tons of CO2 produced during construction of new venues — the committee plans to offset by investing in clean energy projects. Canada’s David Suzuki Foundation, a leading environmental group, says it did well enough to earn a bronze medal.

For its part, London has also committed to green building practices, including early planning for the eventual use of any venues that won’t continue to be sporting venues. The main Olympic Stadium, for example, is being designed with two sections — a lower area with seating for 25,000 people that will be sunk into the ground, and a higher level, with seating for 55,000 people. The higher section will be removed after the Games and donated to Brazil, which will re-use it for the 2016 Games in Sao Paolo.

In addition to making the London's Games the Sustainable Games, the London Organizing Committee and Olympic Delivery Authority (LOCOG) is working to make these the first fully Digital Games. The two aims may seem a bit contradictory — ramping up the number of digital displays in the city will come with increased carbon emissions — but according to Richard Stanaro, vice president of Think London in North America, the committee is working with partners to develop a Technology Sustainability Strategy.

After construction, IT services are the second largest contributor to the Games’ footprint, according to Stanaro. That fact is important because the London 2012 Games will be the first to map its complete carbon footprint.

“There is no universally accepted way of measuring the carbon footprint of an event, so the London 2012 approach assumes a business as usual approach — what would the impact have been before our efforts were put in place — and assumes things like basic legal compliance, comparison to past games, adoption of standard industry practice and standard sector emissions per pound sterling,” Stanaro explained.

The method adopted builds on existing greenhouse gas accounting principles, he said, particularly the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the specifications developed by the British Standards Agency (BSI), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Carbon Trust, an independent nonprofit set up by the UK Government with a mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy.

The committee will measure the footprint up to the conclusion of the Games, and further work is underway to measure the legacy effect. The working estimate of the carbon footprint is in the region of 3.5 million tons of CO2, according to Stanaro, including all “owned, shared and associated” emissions.