Principal Environmental Issues

Issues Important to Event Organizers and Facility Operators

Air quality

The air quality issue has two aspects:

1. Protecting the health and performances of athletes by ensuring that air (both outdoor and indoor) is as safe and clean as possible.  This entails choosing locations and times when air is the least polluted as well as working with local authorities (outdoor) to take steps to minimise pollution, and preventing indoor air from becoming contaminated by a range of pollutants and irritants such as solvents, formaldehyde from glues, tobacco smoke, etc.
2. Minimising the contribution of sports events to air pollution by controlling or eliminating the release of pollutants such as exhaust smoke from heating plants, vehicles and generators, and pesticide spraying.

Water quality

Like air quality, the water quality issue has two aspects:

1. Protecting the health and performances of athletes by ensuring that water (both outdoor and indoor) is as safe and clean as possible.  This entails choosing locations and times when open water is the least polluted as well as working with local authorities to take steps to minimise water pollution.  Indoor water (pools) must similarly be safe from infectious disease but at the same time not be so heavily chemical-laden as to put athletes at risk from overexposure to chemicals.
2. Minimising the contribution of sports events to water pollution by, for example, controlling or eliminating the release of polluted water from sports facilities, limiting soil erosion into rivers and lakes, and preventing pesticides and fertilizers from leaching into ground and surface water.

Land and Water Use

Sports events and the facilities designed to host them can be substantial consumers of land and water.  If new sports facilities are built on land that is valuable as wildlife habitat, urban green space, protected wilderness or for agriculture, it can have a negative environmental impact.  Similarly, events and facilities, which take place on water, can contribute to erosion, destruction of habitat and disturbance of nesting/breeding grounds.  Many sports also consume large quantities of water (i.e. golf courses, pools, ice surfaces, snowmaking for skiing), contributing to water scarcity.

However, through good planning and appropriate choices, sports events/facilities can contribute to the rehabilitation of otherwise polluted or abandoned land and polluted bodies of water.  Urban industrial sites and closed landfills have actually been turned into the sites of sports fields and even major events.

Waste Management

A typical byproduct of major events is a major amount of waste.  Waste can be generated by participants and spectators through event-related activities such as the consumption of food and a wide range of supplies and materials used in hosting an event. In addition, on a larger scale, waste is produced in the construction of permanent sports facilities and the creation and disposal of temporary installations.  Through good waste management practices like reduction, reuse, recycling and composting, a major event can easily cut in half its creation of waste and the associated costs.

Energy Management

Almost all events and facilities consume energy, some in significant amounts.  Operating lighting and sound systems, heating and cooling buildings, creating ice, filtering and pumping pool water and making artificial snow are among the most energy-intensive activities.  In all of these cases there are opportunities to reduce energy consumption and its costs through conservation and energy management strategies.  While reducing demand for energy, sports events and facilities can also reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases responsible for global climate change.

Transportation services

A prominent aspect of sports events is the large demand for moving people and equipment between locations.  When transportation services are badly planned and implemented, the result can be noise, smog, congestion and delays.  When performed well, people can be moved efficiently and quietly with minimal demand for private vehicles and parking and with a relatively small contribution to air pollution and traffic jams.

Accommodation services

Accommodation requirements touch on a wide range of cross-cutting facility and operational issues.  These include energy and water consumption, indoor air and water quality, waste management, transportation, purchasing choices and hazardous materials avoidance and disposal.

Issues for Facilities Construction

With facilities construction comes the opportunity to make choices which can significantly reduce environmental impact through resource consumption, waste generation, land use and various forms of pollution.  The critical point for good environmental performance comes at the planning stage, when decisions are made regarding the need for new facilities (or for renovation/retrofitting), the type of facilities required and their sustainability following the event, their performance and durability, and the impact of their various components (i.e. materials, mechanical systems, etc.).

The concept of sustainable design or designing for sustainability preaches that good choices made at the design stage will have far more impact than any number of later add-ons.

Facility and Accommodation design

The principal environmental issues for designing facilities and accommodations are similar:

• whether to build or renovate;
• where to build;
• the most appropriate type of facility for the major event and afterwards;
• ways to design for conservation of energy, water and other natural resources both in construction and operation; and
• choices of high-performance materials and systems which have less environmental impact in their production, use and disposal.

Transportation design

An efficient, less polluting transportation system is also a manifestation of good planning.  Issues to be considered in design transportation for a major event include:

• how to maximise ridership on public/mass transit;
• how to minimise use of private vehicles between and around venues;
• how to encourage active forms of transit (cycling, walking, etc.); and
• ways to use cleaner fuels in fleet vehicles and to maximise fuel efficiency.

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