The Sustainable Olympics
Though our current climate doesn't inspire such, it's time to get excited about the Winter Olympics - now just two days away. Why are we excited about the Olympics you might be wondering, well, they aren't calling these the "Sustainable Olympics" for nothing. Ah, if only there were a sarcasm font. But seriously, Vancouver has made great strides in their planning, engineering and construction, and with current technologies and advancements in energy conservation, there's no reason to doubt that they won't be the greenest games of all time. Does that matter in the long run though? Is being the greenest Olympics really that big of a deal when a number like 300,000 tons (of carbon emissions that is) hangs over your head? All the more reason to hold the Olympics in the same two places every four years. *John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
Being as it is though, we're here to examine these "Sustainable Olympics" and we're going to rely heavily on a brilliant podcast from last month called the "Builidng Priorities Briefing" on Energy Priorities with host Denis Du Bois.
Du Bois' podcast really is a must listen as he dives into the lessons from the global spectacle, from the venues that Canada constructed for the Games, to the attitudes of Canadians here some seven years after winning the bid - spoiler alert, many are not happy. Du Bois also interviews "green business guru" Martin Westerman on his thoughts about how to really make the games green.
Here's what we took away.
When the flame above the Olympic Village is extinguished come February 28, people will look back and remember the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics not for the gold-medal performances, the emotion and the theatrics, but for the page upon page of documentation on how the Vancouver games set a sustainability goal of managing the environmental, social, and economic impacts and opportunities of the games and if and how that worked. And that's the legacy the organizers want. They want to show other countries what they did, and how they did it, and they want other organizers to follow suit. Du Bois comments, "for almost any green initiative, charges of greenwashing are inevitable. The best defense is a large dose of verifiable measures -- like certified green buildings, or energy efficiency that can be monitored. Never forget: The world is watching."
Vancouver definately has some verifiable measure to boast about. But the bottom line is, travel alone makes it completely impossible to make any sort of statement about sustainability. Strive as they might, air travel and the carbon emissions of that will choke the B.C. sky like nothing the city will ever see again. Then there is the pressure that an event like the Olympics puts on structures and services like waste management, water services and the like. It's a massive undertaking that is nearly impossible to plan for. Meaning concessions will be made for comfort and appearance, and many a times the "quick fix" route will be taken.
So what are the Olympics doing right?
(As a reminder, click here to listen to the entire podcast.)
Vaughn Palmer, a political columnist for the Vancouver Sun, joined Du Bois on his podcast to comment on several projects:
"They're using existing hockey rinks, for example. The International Olympic movement agreed to use a North American-sized ice surface instead of the larger European-sized ice surface, so we wouldn't have to build new hockey rinks. So they're using existing facilities.
They're using the existing Whistler ski facility, which is one of the largest in world. I should say, one of the largest in North America. They did develop a second ski resort development at Callahan Valley, but that's going to be useable anyway.
The convention center was controversial, because it had a huge budget overrun. But that'll be used by the Olympics for a few weeks, but then it'll be available as a convention center. The bookings for the convention center are looking pretty good.
They built the new transit line from the airport, linking downtown Vancouver. It's an elevated light rail system. Very expensive, $2 billion. It's already in operation and very popular with the public. It's meeting its ridership projections, and of course it'll be there after the games are over as well. So when I point out, and others have pointed out, the enormous cost of the games and the games-related projects, the people associated with the Olympics movement will come back and point out that there are a number, as you say, legacies that are associated with these games.
And unlike, I guess the most egregious example is that giant birds nest thing in Beijing. Which I think has been used once since the closing ceremonies in Beijing. We don't have anything that big and big expensive and will only be used for the games and not have a lot of use afterwards.
There is some controversy around that, but we were able either to use existing facilities or what we built has other uses down the road.
The one controversy we haven't mentioned is the Olympic Village in Vancouver, which is massively expensive. It's going to be turned back to what is called "affordable housing." But the only it will work as affordable housing, affordable to anyone in Vancouver who even pays taxes, they're going to have to subsidize the operations of it in some form or eat some of the debt associated with it.
Because some estimates have suggested that the actual cost of construction of that Olympic Village, once the renovations are completed and it's turned into housing, if you include the price of the land as well which was donated by the city. You're looking at [CAD] $600, 000 to $750, 000 per unit.
Well, that may be affordable in some circles, but it doesn't meet my test."
