Article taken from the BBC. To view the article, click here. The bittersweet memory of London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on 6th July 2005 will always be contrasted by the terrorist attack on our transport system the next day; the infamous 7/7 bombings.
Since that day, five years of planning and preparation for "the most sustainable Games ever" have passed and 27 July 2010 marks another milestone; two years to go to the opening ceremony.
As Chair of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 I am frequently asked whether London 2012 will really be the most sustainable Games ever.
In short, it's quite easy to answer "yes" as there have been no real benchmarks set and frankly not much in the form of competition.
Barcelona delivered a great legacy but did not really address its environmental impacts.
Sydney made some progress but it was a while ago and thinking around sustainability has moved on since then. There are also doubts around how the contaminated land was dealt with.
Athens did not in reality deliver a legacy, (and very nearly did not deliver the facilities on time: IOC president, Jacques Rogge, a man not known widely for his sense of humour, recently commented on the honour of installing the first seat in the Olympic stadium by recalling a similar event in Athens, only three months before the Games!)
The grand scale of Beijing precluded some of the good work that was done to reduce carbon due to the massive scale of the facilities with very little, if any, regard to the environmental impacts of building them, and little consideration to their legacy use.
However, if we are to truly answer the question, we need to address some more difficult points:
Is London 2012 on track to deliver its sustainability commitments?
With a few exceptions, yes. The Commission has yet to receive details of how the GLA propose to deliver sustainability through City Operations and we have been asking questions about the Arcelor Mittal tower. In the main things are going well.
However, we are looking closely at the ODA's plans to deliver 20% renewable energy to the Olympic Park post-Games, in legacy, following the cancellation of the wind turbine. We have also always considered LOCOG's target to deliver 20% of the electricity demand during the Games from renewable sources challenging.
Will London 2012 deliver a sustainable legacy?
Probably. Our initial engagement with the Olympic Park Legacy Company has been very positive and much more open and candid than before. However, we have yet to see the details of the Legacy Masterplan Framework and believe there is much more work for us to do in this area. We plan to take a closer look at legacy at least twice between now and the Games.
Will London 2012 actually make a difference?
Right now, I would have to say "no" or, if feeling charitable "not much". We were promised that London 2012 would "set new standards of sustainability", that it would "act as a catalyst for new waste management infrastructure in East London" and that the Olympic Park would be a "Blueprint for sustainable living".
As a Commission, we believe that holding an Olympic Games at all is an inherently unsustainable thing to do. The net amount of benefit to the environment or society of staging the Games needs to be greater than the damage done. This means capturing the intellectual property created by the team before the Games and using it in a way that provides benefits for society and competitive advantage for UK PLC.
Promisingly we have seen some effort recently by the ODA to capture lessons learned but have been disappointed that they abandoned a recent tender to put resources into this due to "budgetary constraints."
LOCOG also has a plan to make their knowledge available and the Government Olympic Executive (GOE) has commissioned a meta-evaluation to study the wider socio-economic impacts of the Games. The inherent problem is that this information is only of any use if it is actually applied.
There are signs that some professional institutions and other learning and knowledge transfer organisations are doing their bit to disseminate the lessons to their members but my concern is that Government has done very little to date.
What needs to happen before the Games?
Of course we must not take our eye off the ball if we are to deliver a sustainable Games, however the focus needs to shift to the intellectual legacy of the "most sustainable Games ever" if we are to deliver a truly sustainable legacy. By Shaun McCarthy, Chair, Commission for a Sustainable London 2012.