Prologue

This paper seeks to offer an overview of the possible environmental sustainability legacy that can be bequeathed to Olympic Games host nations. We start by discussing the connection of the Games with those of the past through pageantry, ceremonialism, and the ideals of athletics with which they have been associated since their revival at the end of the 19th century and attempt to identify an environmental link between them. Subsequently, we proceed to determine the moment that the IOC adopted environmental issues in its programmatic aspirations and offer an account on how the incorporation of environmental factors into planning, organizational, and legacy concerns has evolved over time. The next section focuses on providing an answer on the environmental sustainability legacy issue by accounting for the findings from four case studies of Olympic Games hosting: Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012. This is followed by a brief evaluation of the prospects for Rio 2016. We conclude by pulling everything together and delineating the main contours and challenges that lie behind a positive post-Olympic environmental sustainability legacy.

Olympic Games and the environment: The ancient and the modern

There is a good number of questions that spring to mind when one is confronted with this topic: “The Olympic Games and the environment”. These questions are guided by the emphasis and preferred interpretation that is given to each constituent part – Olympic Games, the environment – or a combination of both with highly selective overtones that largely depend on the proponent of the said question.

In general, when people think and talk about sport mega-events of such great magnitude, like the Olympic Games, they tend to restrict their thinking of the environmental dimension along certain spatial necessities, such as the beautification and restructuring (e.g. new transport, road networks) of the host city. However, if we focus our attention to those that exhibit high levels of concern about environmental issues and partake in related campaigns, we can see that they had always shown an avid interest in each of the phases that comprise the evolution of an Olympic Games edition, from its inception as an idea to its delivery and legacies. This interest has been manifested through a determined monitoring of the environmental credentials of an Olympic Games edition (and other sport mega-events) that, in many occasions, was manifested in outright opposition. However, in some of the most recent sport mega-events, in particular the Olympics, we have been witnessing well known environmental organisations serving from the outset as important advisors and facilitators. There is no doubt that nowadays sport mega-events make great inroads towards showcasing their environmental credentials (Hayes and Karamichas, 2012, pp. 8–14); that largely explains these collaborative tendencies. However, what exactly lies behind this apparent change to a pro-environmental outlook, which we can broadly label as the greening of the Games, by most recent hosts? To what extent is this a ground-breaking change?

This directly leads us to another popular framing of the question. Does the current environmental linkage of the Games correspond to their original fore- fathers in ancient Greece? This is usually a loaded question and a resort to a reply that points out to the modern origins of the Games by their 19th century reinvention by Vikelas and de Coubertin is most likely to be met with outright fury by certain sectors. Irrespective of the side one takes on this issue, the fact is that the pageantry associated with the modern Olympic Games, the ceremonial lightning of the Olympic torch at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics, all put forward a claim of direct lineage with the ancient Games. There are, of course, numerous studies that have successfully demystified some of the most cherished “originals” – ancient and modern – of the Games (see Kidd, 2005; Kritikopoulou, 2007; Young, 2005). This demystification cannot and should not be necessarily seen as an outright dismissal of the global potential for the positive and good that can be accrued to symbolic acts, like the Olympic flame and the related torch relay for the promotion of various social issues (peace, human rights, democracy). However, what about the connection, if any, between the ancient Olympics and the environment? Is there anything here that perhaps can become part of the Olympic imagery and justify placing environmental protection alongside peace and human rights during the Olympic torch relay?

Going back to the ancients, in our quest for another item of imaginative construction, we can identify expressed concerns about the rate of pollution, contamination, waste and the reduction of public spaces, and some sources go as far as to claim that the Greeks had a respect for the environment that was emanating from the religious recognition of humanity’s oneness with nature. If we add to these the fact that the scale of the event in ancient times, irrespective of its wide connection to the Hellenic World, was local and not at all global, like contemporary Games, we can support the claim that the ancient Games were held in a way that was harmonious with the natural environment.

The greening of the Games

Although, as Toyne (2009, p. 232) suggests, “nearly all Games by their sheer scale have considered how to manage their impact” (e.g. changes to urban transport systems in Rome 1960 and Montreal 1976; and tackling urban environmental problems in Tokyo 1964), the benefits accrued were of uncertain longevity and capacity for environmental sustainability. Concurring to that, Evans (2007, p. 298) argues that “analyses of long-term regeneration effects are notable by their absence. Olympic effects are subsumed into wider development and competitive city narratives”. Moreover, even after the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, where it was for the first time confirmed that the Olympic Games could be a money-making enterprise, the environmentalist community continues unabated in its scepticism and opposition to Olympic Games hosting. For Karamichas (2013, p. 97), the environmentalists’ support to the Games “boiled down to demonstrating that the profitable Games that had emerged in Los Angeles could coexist with environmentalism in a mutually reinforcing relationship”.

That process was developed sequentially with the institutionalization of the environmental movement in some Western democracies, and the simultane- ous emergence and popular acceptance of sustainable development (SD) by governments’ and business interest (ibid.)

Although, as the IOCdeclared, under the leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the environment wasthe third pillar of Olympism (with sport and culture being the first and secondrespectively) back in 1986, it was during the 1992 Earth Summit of Rio deJaneiro that established the SD ambition of the IOC with its participation inthe summit. In particular, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)had drafted the Local Agenda 21 (LA21) for the Summit, which was a manual forSD that catered for the specificities of individual country or communityrequirements. This set in motion the development and operationalization ofIOC’s own version of LA21 in 1999, which called for:

1. Improving socio-economic conditions

2. Conservation and management of resources for sustainable environmentand

3. Strengthening the role of major groups

In addition, a set of concrete proposals for materialising these goalswas suggested during the Games, which, among others, included extensive use ofsolar panels and conduct of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for relatedprojects (G-ForSE, n.d.).

This development was preceded by the formation of IOC’s own Sport andEnvironment Commission in 1995 and the addition of the following item in theIOC’s Olympic Charter:

To encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues,to promote sustainable development in sport and to require that Olympics areheld accordingly (IOC, 2011, p.15).

The following year, an additional paragraph complemented the IOC’s rolewith respect to environment, such that:

[...] the IOC sees that the Olympic Games are held in conditions whichdemonstrate a responsible concern for environmental issues and encourages theOlympic Movement to demonstrate a responsible concern for environ-mentalissues, takes measures to reflect such concern in its activities and educates all those connected withthe Olympic Movement as the importance of sustainable development (IOC, 2007,p. x).

Nevertheless, it’s worth pointing out that the first practicalimplementation of environmental concerns took place in the Lillehammer WinterGames of 1994, namely five years before the IOC developed its own environmentalproposals. Lillehammer had experienced grassroots mobilizations against Norwayhosting the Games, which were stimulated by the environmentally catastrophic1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the Savoy region of France. Thatprotest campaign was targeting Olympic Games hosting in general and specificOlympic projects in particular. Concurring to that, Norway has been exhibitingsome of the highest levels of environmental concern and was heavily involved inpreparing the UN Commission for the environment report, “Our Common Future”,which stipulated the core components of the SD principle. Cumulatively, thesefactors led to the organization of a paradigmatic mega-event with a minimalenvironmental impact (Cantelon and Letters, 2000; Caratti and Ferraguto, 2012;Lesjø, 2000). Indeed, irrespective of the fact that the Winter Games have asubstantially different impact on the natural environment than their summercounterparts, Lenskyj (2000, p. 159) argues that Lillehammer provided abenchmark for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Thanks to that, Sydney 2000 has beenthe recipient of the global accolade as the first green Summer Olympics in thehistory of the Games. This achievement, in conjunction with the fact thatSydney was awarded the Games in 1993 on the basis of a strong environmentalcommitment, set an important precedent that prospective hosts have been tryingto emulate since then. As the experience of Athens 2004 informs us, emulationhas not always produced the expected results as far as the environmental legacyaspect is concerned. Indeed, it may be the case that the bid submitted byAthens had to factor in the environmental component in order to stand a goodchance to be successful, but the outcome with the implementation of only anarrow range of environmental commitments stood in the antipode of what wasproduced by Sydney 2000 as that is attested by the highly critical assessmentreports which were produced by both WWF (WWF-Greece 2004) and Greenpeace (2003,2004a, 2004b).

Following Athens, the Beijing 2008 Olympics significantly raised the barfor green ambition by implementing an Olympic Games Impact Study (OGI). Thistype of study was agreed by the IOC in 2001 and “is designed to evaluate theGames’ legacy for the host nation and city against a raft of social, economic,cultural and environmental indicators, hence providing an ‘evidence base’ formeasuring the positive societal consequences of the Games for its hosts” (Mac-Rury and Poynter, 2009, p. 304). It is crucial to note that although London wasthe first Summer Games host city mandated to carry out the OGI study, Beijingnot only carried an OGI but it was also complemented by a Memorandum ofUnderstanding that the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games(BOCOG) signed with UNEP to support the greening of the Games as early as 2005.In essence, not only did Beijing demonstrate its commitment to hosting theGames, but also set another important landmark that was to be emulated by anyaspiring Olympic host city/country. As mentioned above, the original plan wasfor London to conduct the first OGI for the Summer Games. That way, both theBeijing and London experience gave added weight on the need for thetransference of expertise on Olympic Games hosting, in general, and environ-mental impact and legacy, in particular, towards the preparatory phases for Rio2016. Before we discuss this in more detail, the following section offers abrief account on the environmental sustainability legacy that has beenbequeathed to four Olympic host nations: Australia, Greece, China and theUnited Kingdom.

Olympic Games and environmental sustainability: Sydney, Athens, Beijingand London

According to Hiller (2000), sports mega-events are composed by a numberof phases that, for the purposes of directly linking them to the environmentaldimension of Olympic Games hosting, they have been adjusted in the followingdevelopmental sequence: the “pre-event” phase of IOC bidding applications andthe preparations to fulfil environmental commitments; the “event” phase; andthe extent to which these preparations and changes signified a post-eventcommitment to environmental sustainability (ES).

It is this latter phase that we are discussing in this section. Theunderlying rationale that has guided the examination of that phase elsewhere(Karamichas, 2012) was that the emphasis that the IOC gives to the environmentalimpact and legacy of the Games in relation to ES and the substantial work thatthe host nations have to do in order to meet this ES ambition requires“coordination among different state bodies, engagement with civicorganizations, and the restructuring of host cities’ infrastructure”. Rutheiser(1996) has seen this process as “Imagineering”, whilst Karamichas (2012, p.156) has described it as:

[...] a process akin to Engrenage [...], in similar terms conceived forpolicy-making in the nascent European Community by Jean Monnet, in that theprocess of meeting the IOC’s environmental standards could both drag with itthe host nation’s institutional framework and set a precedent that othernations would strive to emulate.

With that in mind and in order to assess the post-Olympic Games hostingcapacity for the ES capacity of the host nation, Karamichas (2012; 2013)adapted the rationale employed by Andersen (2002) in his study onEuropeanization in Eastern Europe by adjusting his two contrasting hypotheses asfollows:

1. In the wake of their respective Games (which were after all awardedto them, at least in part, on the basis of a range of green claims), “oneshould be able to identify marked signs of environmental improvements” in thehosts nations.

2. To achieve environmental transformation, the effect of hosting theOlympic Games “depends more on the supportiveness of domestic politicalprocesses”.

The second hypothesis is evidently marked by a sceptical outlook that isclearly guided by Andersen’s stipulation that ES “in a particular countrydepends on its capacity for environmental reform as fostered and supported bythe character of the political and socio-economic reform process” (Andersen,2002, p. 1396). This is of immense importance in assessing ES capacity of anOlympics host nation in the post-event phase in that, further from challengingIOC’s ambition towards facilitating ES, it factors specific socio-politicaldynamics in the nation and contingencies that may significantly affect thesedynamics. In this direction Karamichas (2012; 2013) identified and selected sixindicators (see table 1).

‍

The assessment of these indicators was complemented by factoring in theimmense changes that ensued with the onset of the 2008 global economic crisisand how these have significantly affected the post-event projection that wasmade by the host nations that followed Sydney 2000. This study demonstrated thatthe engrenage ambitions envisaged by the IOC have been blocked in some cases bythe political dimension (in initial refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol in theAustralian case, refusal to acknowledge the importance of the environmentalissue in the Greek case, and change of government policies in the UK attributedto the sustained global financial crisis). As a result – and that is aptlydemonstrated in Table 2 – no causality was identified between Olympic Gameshosting and improvements in the ES capacity of the host nation. In certaincases, it became evident that an all-encompassing framework aiming at thepolitical and economic modernisation of the host country may be necessary inorder to substantiate a positive post-Olympics ES legacy.

‍

How can we explain the fact that China achieved the highest cumulative score? This study (Karamichas, 2013) saw that as “part of incremental developments that were bound to take place in China after the 1978 modernizing reforms that were initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Hosting the Olympic Games was an affirmation of that path rather than a core stimulant”.

Rio 2016: ES prospects – Closing remarks

Having substantiated that the fulfilment of IOC’s post-event environmental legacy ambitions can falter due to factors tied to nation specific policy limitations rather than a systemic failure or an outright incompatibility of environmental sustainability with mega-events, we can now make a brief endeavour towards the potential for ES that can emanate from hosting the 2016 Games in Rio, Brazil.

Seven years since Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and about four months before the Opening Ceremony of the Games, Brazil is confronted by a number of serious challenges – such as the zika virus and the impeachment against President Rousseff. These have been coupled with an ongoing economic crisis and growing discontent, which was partly demonstrated one year before the opening of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and can potentially have a significant impact on the presentation of Brazil as a safe host. All of them can be used as an intervening variable, in a similar way that the economic crisis has been used in assessing the ES legacy of some of the preceding Olympic editions.

When assessing environmental legacies in relation to Brazil, we should not lose sight of the fact that Brazil, in general, and Rio de Janeiro, in particular, are intimately associated with Sustainable Development (SD). The concerns expressed by Brazilian delegates at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm became a stark reminder of the challenges that any combination of environmental protection with the developmental process was facing. Attempts to compromise these contradictory processes led to the development of the SD perspective during the early 1990s at the 1992 Rio Summit. It was in this Summit that the earlier (1986) declaration by the IOC, which defined the environment as the third pillar of Olympism, acquired more credence. In the bidding application to host the Games, like preceding successful candidates, Rio was not short in making ambitious SD declarations under the general frame of “Green Games for a Blue Planet”, which includes proclamations such as: The Rio 2016 Games will catalyze the environmental policies and programs of the three levels of government via the Rio 2016’s Sustainability Management Plan (SMP). The three pillars of Rio 2016’s SMP – planet, people, prosperity

– will integrate economic, environmental and social elements into the “Green Games for a Blue Planet” vision for the Rio Games:

• Planet signifies the overall environmental commitment of the Games to act locally with a global vision of sustainability

• People indicates the need for ample social benefits, consistent and inclusive for the entire Rio public

• Prosperity symbolizes well administered and transparently managed Games, and economic growth for the city (Brazilian Olympic Committee, 2009).

At this stage – and with clear knowledge that many changes have taken place since the former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was proclaiming to cheering crowds “Our hour has arrived” – an attempt to assess the six indicators came with the following results:

‍

As we can see, a few indicators have achieved positive scores, but we cannot claim that this has any causal connection to Brazil’s success in its bid to host Rio 2016. It will take at least three years after hosting the Games, in the post-event phase to identify any possible positive environmental sustainability aspects.

References

Andersen, M. S. (2002) “Ecological Modernization or Subversion? The Effect of Europeanization on Eastern Europe”, American Behavioral Scientist, 45/9, 1394–416.

Brazilian Olympic Committee (2009), “Candidature File for Rio de Janeiro to Host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Volume 1”, http://rio2016.com/sites/ deafault/files/parceiros/candidature_file_v1.pdf

Cantelon, H. and M. Letters (2000) “The making of the IOC environmental policy as the Third Dimension of the Olympic Movement”, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25/3, 294–308.

Caratti, P. and L. Ferraguto (2012) “The Role of Environmental Issues in Mega-Events Planning and Management Processes: Which Factors Count?” in G. Hayes and J. Karamichas (eds.) Olympic Games, Mega-Events and Civil Societies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 109–25.

Evans, G. (2007) “London 2012” in J. R. Gold and M. M. Gold (eds.) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning and the World’s Games, 1896–2012 (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 298–317.

G-ForSE. (n.d.) “The Environment and the Olympic Movement”, http://www.g-forse. com/enviro/Olympic.html, date accessed: 20 November 2009.

Greenpeace (2003), Pinocchio 2004: Olympic Games – Athens 2004. Promises: Always Green, Always Forgotten. The Environmental Landscape a Year before the Olympics, Athens: Greenpeace.

Greenpeace (2004a), How Green the Games? A Greenpeace Assessment of the Environmental Performance of the Athens 2004 Olympics, Athens: Greenpeace.

Greenpeace (2004b), Olympic Games – Athens 2004. Promises: Always Green, Always Forgotten. An Assessment of the Environmental Dimension of the Games, Athens: Greenpeace.

Hayes, G. and J. Karamichas (2012) “Introduction: Sports Mega-Events, Sustainable Development and Civil Societies” in G. Hayes and J. Karamichas (eds.) Olympic Games, Mega-Events and Civil Societies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 1–29.

Hiller, H. H. (2000) “Toward an Urban Sociology of Mega-Events”, Research in Urban Sociology, 5, pp. 181–205.

IOC (2007) Olympic Charter (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee).

IOC (2011) Olympic Charter (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee).

Karamichas, J. (2012) “Olympic Games as an Opportunity for the Ecological Modernisation of the Host Nation: The Cases of Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004” in G. Hayes and J. Karamichas (eds.) Olympic Games, Mega-Events and Civil Societies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 163-77.

Karamichas, J. (2013) The Olympic Games and the Environment (Basingstoke: Pal- grave Macmillan).

Kidd, B. (2005) “Another World is Possible: Recapturing Alternative Olympic Histories, Imagining Different Games” in K. Young and K. B. Wamsley (eds.), Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games (Oxford: Elsevier), pp. 143–58.

Kritikopoulou, D. (2007) “The Olympic Ideal: A Historical Overview of the Olympic Games Institution through the Philosophical Theorisation of the Values of Olympism” in T. Doulkeri (ed.) Sports, Society and Mass Media. The Case of the Olympic Games of Athens 2004 (Athens: Papazisi), pp. 47–75.

Lenskyj, H. J. (2000) Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics and Activism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).

Lesjø, J. H. (2000) “Lillehammer 1994”, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35/3, 282–93.

MacRury, I. and G. Poynter (2009) “Olympic Cities and Social Change” in G. Poynter and I. MacRury (eds.) Olympic Cities: 2012 and the Remaking of London (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 303–26.

Rutheiser, C. (1996) Imagineering Atlanta. The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams (London and New York: Verso).

Sonnenfeld, D. (2015) “Review of The Olympic Games and the Environment, by John Karamichas”, Contemporary Sociology, 44/1, pp. 75–77.

Toyne, P. (2009) “London 2011 – Winning the Olympic ‘Green’ Medal” in G. Poynter and I. MacRury (eds.) Olympic Cities: 2012 and the Remaking of London (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 231– 42.

WWF-Greece (2004) Environmental Assessment of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, Athens: WWF.

Young, D. (2005) “From Olympia 776 BC to Athens 2004: The Origins and Authenticity of the Modern Olympic Games” in K. Young and K. B. Wamsley (eds.), Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games (Oxford: Elsevier), pp. 3–18.

‍

KARAMICHAS John, "The Olympic Games and the Environment",in:K. Georgiadis (ed.), Olympic values-based learning as an effective tool forenvironmental protection, 56th International Session for Young Participants (AncientOlympia,11-25/6/2016), International Olympic Academy, Athens,2017, pp.96-107.

‍

‍

‍