By Jessica Shankleman, Source: BusinessGreen

On Friday afternoon, London 2012’s sustainability team will switch off their computers for the last time and join their colleagues in disbanding the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog).

But before they go, Locog will today unveil a final report, detailing the environmental impact of the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.

The report shows LOCOG met the vast majority of its sustainability targets, with headline figures confirming that during the events zero waste went to landfill, 86 per cent of Olympic Park visitors arrived by train, and carbon emissions were reduced by an estimated 28 per cent against a business-as-usual baseline.

The report shows that overall, London 2012 avoided 400 kilotons of CO2 equivalents (ktCO2e), across both construction and staging.

Locog said it had expected to deliver a smaller carbon footprint, but as 15 million people lined the route of the torch relay and all the venues were full, spectator-related emissions were 243 ktCO2e higher than expected.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, David Stubbs, head of sustainability for London 2012, maintained that beyond the actual carbon savings, the creation of the Games’ footprinting tool and a new international standard for the sustainable management of sporting events was a major achievement.

Both tools will be used by organisers of the next Games in Rio, Brazil.

Unlike established organisations, LOCOG had no carbon baseline to work from, so it had to estimate the Games’ environmental impact without sustainability efforts, and then set a CO2 reduction target based on the estimate.

Stubbs urged other event managers to adopt the carbon footprinting tool pioneered by LOCOG.

“When you’re putting on a project – if you’re building High Speed Two, or the new Crossrail or a theme park in Kent or putting on the Games – you’re looking forward and you only really have one shot,” he said.

“The footprint is what it is at the end of the story, so you’re using this tool to try and predict the major areas and put in place strategies to try and minimise it. That is valuable for anyone who is planning a project.”