The Environmental Sustainability of the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Our report welcomes progress made towards making London 2012 eco-friendly, but finds that more work is needed to ensure targets are sufficiently ambitious. It urges London 2012, the Mayor and the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 to remain focused and push the agenda forward.

While good work has been done to reduce carbon emissions, the Committee expresses concern that the carbon strategy is not yet finished and that this may result in missed opportunities. The report says it is essential that all opportunities for carbon saving – including the increased use of renewable energy - are identified.

The report also says the following should be addressed to ensure the Games are environmentally sustainable:

• There is still significant work to do in delivering sustainability when developing the food delivery plan. Up to 14 million meals will be served during the Games, and the report calls for hard targets on the use of local and organic food to be set before contracts start being signed
• The Mayor should consider how preparations for the Olympics can be used to spread environmental legacy benefits to the whole of London. One opportunity may be to apply the knowledge, skills and supply chains, gained through waste infrastructure development in East London for the Games, to improve the capital’s entire waste infrastructure