The new reports cover the whole London 2012 programme; they summarise how we are addressing our sustainability commitments through construction work on the Olympic Park site and other venues, and a host of environmental, social and educational initiatives across London and the UK all of which contribute to the concept of sustainable Games.
Of course it is good to be able to highlight some major headline areas. For me the theme that is emerging across all the various sustainability activities is one of inspiring change. This can be in terms of encouraging people to do more healthy exercise, reduce their carbon footprint or recycle more. It's also relevant to how we operate and do business as an Organising Committee.
Our emphasis on sustainable sourcing is sending an important signal to companies seeking to work with London 2012 that we take this issue seriously. I have seen practical examples of this in the large events we recently held – the Beijing Debrief conference last week, and the Visa London 2012 Handover Party (40,000 person open air concert in the Mall) back in August. On both of these occasions we worked closely with venue managers, production companies and a host of other suppliers to improve accessibility, minimise waste, cater for diverse tastes, source materials which were recycled and/or recyclable and communicate these initiatives.
Recycling at the Visa London 2012 party:
These activities are helping to spread the application of sustainability across the event sector; they also give us good practice at event management (albeit on a relatively small scale compared with what is coming in under four years time) and reinforce internal understanding of sustainability in practice within LOCOG.
