Environmental Purchasing Bulletin #54:
The Greening of the Olympic Games

PLEASE NOTE:  These bulletins, published since 1997, are historical.  The content is not updated.

This event happened in the past.  Internet links are no longer available.

• Introduction
• "Turning Green Into Gold"
• For More Information
• Environmental Purchasing Program

Introduction

With three weeks to go until the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, we thought it might be interesting to find out how the organizers plan to arrange such a large event and still respect the environment. By nature, the Olympic Games are consumptive (building Olympic villages, bringing in hundreds of thousands of athletes and spectators, etc), and we learned that Sydney was the first host city ever to include a comprehensive commitment to the environment as part of its bid to host an Olympic Games.

Staging the Games is an enormous task, with major financial, social and environmental implications and seven years of intense organization and planning. It's too soon to tell what the outcome of all these efforts will be, but they have made plans for recycling, worm composting, sustainable building, as well as other environmental initiatives.

Today's bulletin contains links to the environmental goals that were set for the 2000 Olympics and some up-to-date information about how they are achieving these goals.

The International Olympic Committee acknowledges the relevance of environmental issues in recent games, and planning for the environment impact of these games has been under way for years. Sydney outlined their commitment to the Environment in 1993, by submitting Environmental Guidelines in their bid for the Olympics.  They formed an Environment Committee which included several environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, Environment Protection Authority

Overall goals include:

• a commitment to energy conservation and the use of renewable energy sources
• a commitment to water conservation
• a commitment to waste avoidance and minimization
• a commitment to protecting human health with appropriate standards of air, water, and soil quality
• a commitment to protecting significant natural and cultural environments.

According to the Olympic Co-ordination Authority (OCA), "a commitment to the environment is at the heart of all planning and construction management for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games."

Most of the new purpose-built Olympic sporting venues have been designed to maximize energy efficiency, conserve water, and preserve indoor air quality. All are constructed from environmentally-friendly materials, using building processes specially designed to minimize waste.

Transportation is another major issue during the Olympic Games. To ensure that the impact is significantly reduced, all spectators will use public transport to travel to and from venues. In fact, the ticketing system has been specially designed so that anybody purchasing a ticket to an Olympic event also receives a pass to travel free on Olympic transport routes for the entire day. Many of the buses set aside for this purpose will be powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) which is less polluting than gas or diesel.

For More Information

This event happened in the past.  Internet links are no longer available.