A sad spectacle: In the summer of 2004, this was where the public watched the canoe disciplines of the Olympic Games in Athens. | Image: Jamie McGregor Smith

The Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup are the most watched and most expensive events on the planet. They have the capacity to transform cities like no other public policy. In this sense, they could be a driving force for transforming entire cities into more sustainable models. But this is not the case. This has been demonstrated in the preliminary results of a longitudinal study comparing the impacts of mega-events, conducted by Martin Müller, a professor of human geography at the University of Lausanne.

The preliminary results of the study describe the evolution of sustainability in the Olympic Games since 1992. For those 16 editions, the researchers analysed three indicators for each of the three dimensions of sustainability: ecological (percentage of new buildings, visitor footprint, size of the event), social (changes in laws, social security and peace) and economic (budget overrun, share of public funds, and use of facilities after the event). Surprisingly, the Olympics are becoming less and less sustainable, despite the declarations of the organisers of the Vancouver 2010 edition, which was labelled “the first sustainable Games in history”.

According to the study, and contrary to all expectations, the most sustainable Olympics since 1992 were those of Salt Lake City (2002), although the organisers did not communicate on the ecological dimension. Albertville (1992) came second in the ranking, well ahead of Barcelona (1992). At the other end is Sochi (2014), just behind Rio (2016). “These results do not surprise me”, says the geographer Christopher T. Gaffney, a professor at New York University, who took part in the study until 2017. The Olympics have been growing steadily according to capitalist logic: it is clear that they meet fewer and fewer sustainability criteria. It should be pointed out that, despite their top position, the Salt Lake City Olympics cannot be considered “sustainable”, says Müller. “Their main quality was good financial management, but they scored slightly better than the others on criteria such as the number of visitors or the displacement of populations”, he says.

Smaller events

To reverse the trend, how could future Olympics be made more sustainable? “Our recommendations are in favour of reducing the size of the events”, says Müller. “But we should also plan to run them in a network of cities and to undertake independent evaluations of sustainability standards”. This last point appears all the more crucial, as the study shows that the organisers of the Olympic Games favour spectacular green actions without changing the socio-economic structures of the events. “In Tokyo, they spoke about medals made of components from old telephones, but this is a negligible aspect”, says Müller.

Gaffney is not so optimistic. “International sports organisations do not change unless there is strong external pressure. Their operating model is neither sustainable nor inclusive and does not promote an equitable redistribution of resources”. Could the current pandemic change this? “It is difficult to make predictions”, says Gaffney. “If the coronavirus were to transform social norms in the long run, it may no longer be conceivable to mix so many people in one place. However, I think the change will come from the younger generation, who consume the media differently and are no longer as fond of this type of event”. For both researchers, however, one trend is clear: the heyday of mega-events is definitely a thing of the past.