By Shaun McCarthy, Chair, Commission for a Sustainable London 2012
London 2012 was the first Olympic and Paralympic Games to attempt to deliver a holistic sustainability programme from construction, through Games-time and into legacy and also the first to open itself up to scrutiny by an independent commission. The Commission was the first (and hopefully not the last) body of its kind; empowered to assure all aspects of social, economic and environmental sustainability across all the organisations tasked with delivering the London 2012 venues, Games and legacy in the UK. I had the honour to chair the Commission since its inception in 2006 through to the end of transformation work in March 2013. I reported directly to the Mayor of London and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and had an independent voice to the public through our reports and website www.cslondon.org. The website is now being hosted by Royal Holloway University and is becoming a focus for academic work related to sustainable business practices.
We were empowered to report honestly to the public and we did not allow any aspects of sustainability to be fudged or brushed under the carpet. This was a key contributory factor in delivering unprecedented levels of sustainability.
Inspirational performance
From a sustainability perspective, London 2012 has been a success. There is no doubt that the ODA has delivered great sustainable venues. From the wonderful velodrome with 30% better energy efficiency and half the materials of the equivalent building in Beijing to the less iconic but equally important energy centre with tri-generation, heating, cooling and non-potable water infrastructure throughout the park. The Olympic Park also has the UK’s first industrial-scale membrane bio-reactor delivering non-potable water from the product of one of London’s main sewers which runs alongside the park. I would have liked to have seen a more radical approach to the energy infrastructure. Great as it is, it requires natural gas as a primary fuel source and given the cancellation of the planned wind turbine, renewable energy remains conspicuous by its absence.
One of the key messages throughout the life of the Commission was “there is no such thing as a sustainable Olympic Games”, we believed the Games could only be considered sustainable if there was evidence of wider influence on sustainable practices. We pushed the ODA and LOCOG hard to leave a learning legacy and I believe this is making profound changes to the way the construction industry views sustainability. Shortly before the Games I started to get involved in the Supply Chain School for the construction industry, a virtual learning environment for sub-contractors. This continues to be a great success, due in no small part to the inspirational performance of London 2012.
Ground-breaking initiatives
LOCOG made meticulous plans to deliver unprecedented levels of sustainability during the Games through ground-breaking initiatives. An example of this would be the implementation of the sustainable sourcing code and the diversity and inclusion business charter. Together these initiatives drove the supply chain to unprecedented levels of environmental and socio-economic sustainability. The food vision and zero-waste plans also worked well together to transform the catering and waste industries. The food vision set new levels of sustainability through the chain of custody and the zero-waste aspiration required all food packaging to be bio-degradable. The whole package was managed through use of the new ISO 2012.1 standard for sustainable event management and reported through the new GRI supplement for sustainable events. Even the iconic Olympic flame used 15% of the gas consumed by its equivalent in Beijing and weighed 16t compared to its Chinese counterpart weighing in at a massive 300t.
The local community and communities across the UK have benefited from jobs, skills and employment opportunities through a partnership between the delivery bodies, local authorities, skills agencies, job centres and community groups. This required detailed planning and forecasting of skills requirements and the combined resources to deliver work-ready and appropriately skilled people at the time they are needed. This is a big challenge and requires all the parts to come together at the right time. Any major project, event or venture would benefit from this approach but be warned; it is not easy.
Optimistic about legacy
London 2012 was the first public-transport Games and the recent publication by the Legacy Corporation of their sustainability guide provides good evidence of their commitment to making the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park “a blueprint for sustainable living” as promised at the outset. I remain optimistic about legacy. All of the permanent venues now have legacy plans, even the media and broadcast centre, a building which could accommodate five jumbo jets parked wing tip to wing tip and potentially a huge White Elephant. The combination of a high-technology anchor tenant, a university research institution and space for small technology businesses to grow is just what Hackney needs to provide high-quality jobs for its young, multi-cultural population.
We can conclude from our assurance work that London 2012 has indeed delivered the most sustainable Games ever. Of course there are some things that could have been done better; energy conservation was pretty poor and inconsistency in delivery between LOCOG venues and government live sites did not help but the overall package of a great green space, food vision, a very visible waste strategy, great public transport and access for most disabled people proved to be a gold-medal winning combination.
Not everything is perfect and there are some issues which will not be resolved by London 2012 and need to be addressed in future. These include: a low-carbon fuel source for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; addressing labour standards in the supply chain, particularly for merchandise; and dealing with wider stakeholder concerns about the corporate behaviour of commercial partners. The innovative sponsorship opportunity for “sustainability partners” has not been wholly successful and I would recommend that similar initiatives are much more explicit in their commitments, so the partner “earns” the right rather than just paying for it.
The challenge is now with those industries and the people who commission services from them to demand these standards as a minimum and for the sectors to kick on and raise the bar even higher. The findings of the Commission’s final report “Making a Difference” make me optimistic, there is a growing band of people and organisations who understand the business opportunities presented through more sustainable solutions.
