With less than a year to go until the Opening Ceremony of London 2012, the construction of all the major venues is complete and the first indicators are available on how successful the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) are in meeting their sustainability objectives.
Objectives relating to environmental, social and economic sustainability have been included in specifications, procurements and contracts since the award of the games to London in June 2005, with the requirement that they are pushed through supply chains.
The business community has been able to directly benefit from the commercial opportunities generated by London 2012. 98% of contracts awarded by LOCOG and the ODA have been awarded to businesses based in the UK, and half of these have gone to businesses in London and the South East. The ODA has directly awarded almost £6bn worth of business, through 1,400 contracts, to UK companies and thousands more businesses have won contracts further down the supply chain. Altogether an estimated 75,000 firms are expected to win work directly related to London 2012.
A significant proportion of contracts have been awarded through the CompeteFor portal. Of all the contracts awarded through CompeteFor to date, 72% have gone to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs)s and 22% to businesses with 10 or less employees.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, ODA Chairman John Armitt commented;
"In 2008, it was China's opportunity to say to the world - 'We have joined.' I think our message is, 'Look at what British companies can do.' Look at the quality, the imagination and their capability to manage."
The first tier contractors that built the venues in Stratford and elsewhere in the UK include large construction companies such as Balfour Beatty, Carillion and Sir Robert McAlpine. The firms who supplied the materials and services as suppliers and sub-contractors are predominantly SME.
"These projects are built by SMEs," says Armitt. "The big companies are overseeing the performance of the SMEs".
At its peak, the workforce on the Olympic Park in Stratford reached 12,365 people. Of these, 25% were residents in the five 'Host Boroughs', more than six out of ten lived in London (62%) and 21% were Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME).
Programmes set up to maximise the 'big build' employment legacy have helped more than 1,400 previously unemployed local people gain work on the Park, delivered more than 3,400 training places, to enable people to work on the Park and other construction sites and enabled 426 apprentices to work on the project.
In terms of environmental sustainability, the ODA are on-course to meet the overall target to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions, including through a 9% contribution from renewable energy and an innovative, site-wide Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CCHP) plant.
There are indications that London 2012 will add to knowledge and practice around sustainability that will be of international benefit well into the future. For example, ODA sustainability standards are to be replicated by UK central government. Also, the sustainability reporting for London 2012 is likely to demonstrate the new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) format for the event sector, at the same time that a new ISO standard on events management is introduced.
Thus, even a year out from the main event, London 2012 is raising the bar for sustainability and demonstrating that sustainability objectives can be met on time and on budget, particularly when they are specified from the very outset as part of the core purpose of a procurement.