Greener Olympics

In February 2010 Canada hosted the world's biggest winter event. The Winter Olympics. The monstrous job was given to Canada's third largest city, Vancouver and the VANOC organizing committee. Winter is a giant part of Canadian culture and tourism. It is estimated that Canada's winter tourism industry makes 5 billion dollars every year. Currently, winter and its activities are only possible because of the temperature. If we don't make some drastic changes, with in the next 50 years the global average temperature is estimated to rise by 2°C. With this very high temperature we can expect the winter season too be a lot shorter and the activities that come with it to start disappearing. This will affect Canada's tourism but it will affect the people and animals inhabiting Canada and the world even more.

When the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) found out that the Winter Olympics will be held in Canada, they saw it as a great way to push everyone to reduce their emissions and ultimately become carbon neutral. The DSF contacted VANOC, the Vancouver Winter Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee, and pushed them to set themselves goals (emissions, public awareness, etc). The DSF also received help from over 70 Winter Olympic athletes who were also learning how to reduce their carbon footprint in order to protect the sports they dedicate a large part of their lives to. Thousands of Canadians also signed a petition to make the games greener for the environment.

VANOC responded to the challenge that would affect the way the games and the hosts would be remembered in the future by setting themselves goals and targets like they were pushed to by the DSF and many other individuals. They aimed to be as close to zero emissions as possible. Also, they planned to offset the emissions that they couldn't avoid by investing in renewable energy and energy efficient projects in order to balance their total Olympic related emissions at zero. Another big thing that VANOC said they would do is try to increase public awareness about global warming and VANOC's efforts to reduce emissions.

About a week before the games officially started, after all the planning was complete, the DSF released an official report on how well VANOC did to make the games environmentally friendly. The DSF gave them "Bronze" for their overall performance. They did alright considering that if the DSF scored all the Olympics in the last ten years, none of them would of been awarded gold, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Here are the main points of the report:

Positive:

• reduced total Olympic and Paralympic related emissions by 15%
• achieved goal of diverting 85% of Olympic and Paralympic related waste
• committed to offsetting 118 000 tonnes of emissions
• built and renovated energy efficient venues
• used renewable and green energy at venues
• saved 15% or more of  energy costs at many venues
• encouraged public transit
• tracked Olympic and Paralympic related emissions for over 7 years

Negative:

• didn't reach 0 or close to 0 in Olympic and Paralympic related emissions
• public education/awareness programs wern't very effective
• increased emissions from transportation due to widening highway between Vancouver and Whistler at a cost of 600 million dollars in order to accommodate spectators
• committed to offsetting less than half of their emissions
• no long term transportation system will exist after the games are over
• didn't publicly announce their emissions target

I think that VANOC showed a lot of effort to make the games greener but no where near enough. The main thing that Olympic organizing committees can do in the future to be more successful is reducing their total emissions even more and offsetting 100% of the emissions that they do have. Another big thing that could be improved is public awareness. Many millions of people watch the Olympics. I think that in the future there should be more effort made to inform viewers about global warming and the effect it has on sports. Something long term could be establishing a transportation system that will last long after the games are over to reduce the number of cars in the area. I hope to see all of these things and more implemented in the fast approaching London 2012 Summer Olympics.

References:

David Suzuki Foundation   

• On Thin Ice: Winter Sports and Climate Change (PDF) 
• Climate scorecard for the 2010 winter game (PDF)