Abstract
The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada (Vancouver 2010) made history for being the first ‘sustainable’ Olympic and Paralympic Games, from planning to execution. In contrast, previous Summer and Winter games in the last two decades were presented as ‘Green’, with an emphasis on eco-efficiency rather than a more complex approach to sustainability, a concept which goes beyond structure-oriented environmental care. In this concern, the difference between the so-called Green Games and the Sustainable Games would rely on the rationale that ‘sustainability’ involves more than just environment friendly procedures, but would incorporate also social and economic well-being into its framework. The Green Games utilised technologies and practices that were aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of the mega event on the host cities/towns, within a discourse aligned with the protection of the local natural environment. The Vancouver 2010 ‘Sustainable Games’, on the other hand, proposed to expand the ‘green’ programme and go “beyond the environmental impacts of the Games to include the social and economic dimensions of sustainability”. A similar proposal is in place for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Taking into account this context, the present chapter will briefly analyse the paradigm shift in mega event bidding processes, particularly in the case of the Games, where environmentalist discourse increasingly in being used to legitimize successful proposals. This review is justified by the complexity involved in the implementation of sport projects that aggregate several distinct purposes (social development, tourism, an increase in job opportunities, etc.), particularly projects of the size and scope of mega-events such as the Games, but that at the same time claim to be sustainable. Additionally, this chapter will succinctly examine the sustainability proposal presented by the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games Organising Committee, with the aim of assessing the validity and continuity of what is now called the ‘Sustainable Games’.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Sustainability and Sport |
Editors | Jill Savery, Keith Gilbert |
Place of Publication | U.S. |
Publisher | Common Ground |
Pages | 167-175 |
Number of pages | 9 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781863359122 |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |
Keywords
- Paralympic Games
- sustainability
- planning
- Olympics