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Torino organizers claim new green standard

Vancouver 2010 officials learn from Torino's lessons

By Clare Ogilvie

Organizers of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy are claiming to have set new standards in environmental sustainability for mass sport and audience events.

And that is good news for the organizers of the Vancouver 2010 Games, who have been involved in an active transfer of knowledge about sustainable initiatives.

“There was definitely a lot to be learned and the Torino organizers have been terrific at sharing their experiences,” said Ken Baker, consulting director, environmental sustainability for the Vancouver Organizing Committee.

Three of the major topics under discussion have been how and where to build venues, how to handle all the different kinds of waste a Games produces, and how to offset emissions associated with hosting such a large event.

In Torino’s 209-page sustainability report, released recently at the United Nations Environment Programme Global Forum Sport and Environment in Lausanne, event organizers are able to get a glimpse of how successful the 2006 Olympic initiatives were.

For example, the report said that 67 per cent of the estimated 103,500 tonnes of green house gas emissions produced were offset through the Heritage Climate Torino (HECTOR) program. Work will continue in the Piedmont region to offset the emissions totals from the Games.

Internationally, HECTOR was used to purchase verifiable emission reductions from certified green and cleaner energy projects in Eritrea, Mexico and Sri Lanka.

And it’s estimated that the 16 days of the Games only increased the waste burden in Torino by 0.2 per cent. In 2000 an average of just under 20 per cent of waste and rubbish was separated for recycling and re-use in the region, but by 2005 it had climbed to well over one-third as a result of TOROC’s Prevention and Management Plan.

Other initiatives at the Torino Games included the investment of five million euros by the administration of the Regione Piedmonte in renewable and sustainable energy projects, such as district heating projects.

Organizers also looked closely at their snowmaking requirements, as the systems consume large quantities of water. After review Torino was able to reduce water storage reservoirs from 20 to just nine for the event.

“Torino 2006, in which UNEP has been a partner, set targets and timetables across a wide range of environmental and sustainability criteria,” said Achim Steiner, UN undersecretary general and executive director of UNEP.

“Mass sporting events, televised around the world, offer a great potential for practically demonstrating how UNEP’s belief in the power of sport to inspire improving environmental management can be achieved in every sphere of life — potential that can inspire organizers of big audience participation events as well as governments, industry and individuals to also become champions for our planet.

“I sincerely hope that the next Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada in 2010 along with operators of winter sports globally pick up the Torino torch en route to the ultimate goal of realizing sustainable sporting events and leisure activities across the world.”

That’s a torch well along its route for VANOC, which will produce its first report on sustainability early next year.

Officials can clearly see the potential to impact not just visitors but the up to 25,000 volunteers who will be trained in waste management and sustainability.

“I think it is an opportunity that is unprecedented in the number of people that are involved,” said Baker.

“We have 20,000 to 25,000 volunteers who will get oriented and trained around managing and handling waste and what our goals are, and all of that goes back to their communities and back to their businesses.”

There are literally hundreds of initiatives under way or under discussion at VANOC, but the big three, said Baker, surround the choice of venue location and construction, reducing emissions and waste management.

Baker feels that by clustering the venues in Vancouver and Whistler, building two athletes villages, focusing on the post-Games use of the facilities and building to a green standard the sustainable legacies in construction are being kept at the forefront.

When it comes to waste management organizers are not just looking at how garbage is handled but at the whole lifecycle of whatever the container might be.

“(We need to) think about things over their lifecycle, where they come from, how do we use them, where do they go after we use them,” said Baker.

“That consciousness is an important educational element.”

But the biggest challenge may come from VANOC’s commitment to have a climate-neutral Games.

“…Job one is to reduce the amount of emissions,” said Baker.

“That usually means a reduction in the amount of energy required, particularly fossil fuel-based energy that emits green houses gases. That is in transportation systems and energy-power systems, and then we need to green the supply.”

If, at the end of the day, VANOC has to buy carbon credits as Torino did that may have its own headaches, as the projects invested in must be verifiable. And of course there is a cost to the organizing committee.

  But Baker believes it is too important a responsibility to just shrug off as too challenging.

“Yes it is a challenge,” he admits. “But in today’s world it is one of the ones we have to continue to pursue. I talk with our own organizing committee plus our sponsors, and our partners and the communities that surround us, and everyone has a role to play… in how we achieve this.”