Australia Pacific www.greenpeace.org.au Sydney Office 4/39 Liverpool Street Sydney NSW GPO Box 3307 Sydney NSW 2001 Tel: 61 (0)2 9261 4666 Freecall 1800 815 151 Fax: 61 (0)2 9261 4588 International Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tel: 31 20 523 62 22 Fax: 31 20 523 62 00 www.greenpeace.org GREENPEACE’S ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF THE SYDNEY 2000 OLYMPICS GIVE THE PLANET A SPORTING CHANCE How green the Games? GREENPEACE’S ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF THE SYDNEY 2000 OLYMPICS A production of Greenpeace International & Greenpeace Australia Pacific Researched, Written and Edited by: Blair Palese, Corin Millais, Rupert Posner, Fiona Koza, Elisabeth Mealey, Warren McLaren, Darryl Luscombe, Matt Ruchel, Mark Oakwood, Tanja Dam, Gabriella Wuelser, Sybrand Landman, Danielle Stewart, Jo Shepherd and Linda Apps. Special Thanks To: Karla Bell for the original campaign idea Maria Atkinson, Bovis Lend Lease Peter Ottesen, SOCOG Camilla Edwards,OCA Andrzej Listowski, OCA Russell Peel, Foster’s Brewing Nicholas Cox, Earthcare Brent Hoare, Greenchill Ladas Taylor, Greenchill Paul Blacklock, Calorgas Kevin Sansome, Elgas Birte Carstensen, Danfoss Compressors Jacqui Courtney and staff at SEDA Rod Simpson, Allen Jack & Cottier A number of architects, developers, suppliers and contractors also gave freely of their time, including: Declan Brennan, Bryce Christian, Andrew Dunn, Craig Gilbert, Steve King, Stuart Morris, Richard Polkinghorn, Jeff Profke, David Shaw, Greg Taylor, Colin Wyllie and many other valu- able contributors too numerous to mention. September 2000 ISBN: 1 876221 08 9 Cover photos: © Anthony Edgar. Designed by Pulse Design, Sydney, Australia How green the Games? Contents Executive Summary ....................................................................................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................7 Lessons Learned ........................................................................................................8 Chapter 1. Toxic contamination & the Olympic Games..................................11 Chapter 2. Energy use at the Olympic Games..................................................21 Chapter 3. Refrigeration & airconditioning at the Olympic Games ..........31 Chapter 4. Alternatives to PVC at the Olympic Games ..............................39 Chapter 5. Timber use at the Olympic Games ................................................47 Chapter 6. Water use at the Olympic Games ..................................................55 Chapter 7. Transport at the Olympic Games ..................................................61 Glossary ............................................................................................................67 The Sydney 2000 Olympics have produced a mix of wins and losses on the environment front. While the wins are impressive, the losses show that Sydney could have done more to give the planet a sporting chance. Greenpeace is determined to ensure that the pursuit of environmental solutions does not end with the Sydney Olympic Games. We will continue to push for environmental solutions and technologies to be taken off-site and put into use internationally. The following is a summary of Greenpeace’s evaluation of the seven key areas that featured prominently in Sydney’s Environmental Guidelines and how Sydney performed against them. Our Executive summary report also provides the context of what world’s best practice for each issue area is and how Sydney’s effort stacks up against that. Finally, and most importantly, there have been many lessons learned by Sydney’s Green Games effort that should not be lost. These lessons are not only an important part of the on-going process of moving toward sustainable development, but should be used by future Olympic cities to avoid the pitfalls experienced by Sydney for a better overall environmental performance. LESSONS LEARNED LESSON 1: Make specific environmental commitments as part of your development plans well before design plans are finalised and construction begins. Make these commitments public. LESSON 2: Environmental Guidelines must be clear and specific benchmarks that are non-negotiable, measurable and backed up by law. These benchmarks must be included in all of the tenders offered for Olympic development and made public. LESSON 3: Olympic organisers and developers must be required to collect and report information on all environmental aspects of their project and make this information publicly available. LESSON 4: Independent auditing of all environmental information is essential to ensure credibility. LESSON 5: No matter how Olympic construction is managed – with one project manager or as independent projects and contracts – Olympic organisers must ensure that the best and most cost-effective environmental systems and materials are used project-wide. 1 | Executive summary LESSON 6: by companies such as Union Carbide and Orica for Great enthusiasm for and expertise in decades. One of the greatest failings of the NSW environmental building and event management Government is its failure to live up to a promise to exists at all levels internationally. Seek out and clean up this area – half a million tonnes of dioxin engage those innovative and creative experts and contaminated waste – before the Games. companies interested in the environmental success of your event. SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS • A new, non-incineration remediation technology, LESSON 7: which uses heat to separate waste from soil and High-level and consistent consultation with the chemical treatment to break down the waste, is community, environmental and social groups is being trialed to treat 400 tonnes of dioxin- essential and must be part of the project from the contaminated waste found on the Olympic site. beginning. A clear process for conflict should be Greenpeace lobbied strongly for this to be used at established as part of the city’s Environmental Sydney’s Olympic site because no toxic emissions Guidelines. are released during the treatment process. LESSON 8: FAILURES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES Education about environmental initiatives • Despite government promises, there has been no undertaken and the benefits gained is essential at clean-up for Homebush Bay and the Rhodes all levels, from the public to athletes, sponsors, the Peninsula just off-site. Half a million tonnes of media and the commercial sector. untreated dioxin-contaminated waste remain in the muds of Homebush Bay and on land just 2.5 GREENPEACE EVALUATION OF kilometres off the Olympic site. SEVEN KEY ISSUE AREAS: • The OCA chose to landfill most of the waste on- site rather than to segregate and treat it. Instead, TOXIC CONTAMINATION it was collected into a number of large landfill Sydney's wider Homebush Bay area was the site of mounds that were capped and installed with wholesale dumping of domestic, industrial and drains to allow liquid run-off to go to a treatment commercial wastes from the 1930s until the 1980s. plant on-site. Nine million cubic metres of waste were dumped • This system must be managed and maintained in the area, filling more than 160 hectares of the indefinitely to ensure leachate does not escape natural wetlands in the area. Some of this was and pollute the environment. Greenpeace has made up of extremely hazardous industrial waste been asking the NSW Government for a long- and has had a significant impact on the wider term, post-Games management plan for the site environment and receiving waters due to its but this plan has yet to be provided. toxicity, persistence and/or bio-accumulative • There is still no publicly accessible validation nature. documentation on the bulk of the remediation work. The New South Wales (NSW) Government's decision to bid for the 2000 Summer Olympic ENERGY Games meant that the motivation, and more With climate change fast becoming one of the importantly, funding commitments were mobilised world’s biggest challenges, the need for solutions to to clean-up and manage a site which probably our reliance on fossil fuels for energy is dire. At the would otherwise have languished as a Sydney Olympics, renewable energy has virtually contaminated legacy of industrial dumping. As a substituted conventional fossil fuels to meet the former dumping ground, the redevelopment of the huge energy demands of a modern Olympic site represented an opportunity to develop Games Games showing that it can be done and that it is infrastructure without clearing previously cost effective. untouched remnant vegetation or contributing further to Sydney's suburban sprawl. It was also With over 90 per cent of Australia’s energy close to public transport from the city. generated by coal-fired power stations,1 the switch to clean, renewable energy at the Olympics is an While there are many issues about how effectively important success. Remarkably, the grid-connected the site has been cleaned up, it is highly solar photovoltaics installed at the Olympic Park improbable that the investigation into, separation contribute nearly half of all New South Wales’ grid- and landfilling of waste on-site would have connected PV power. The use of rooftop solar occurred to the extent it has without the Olympics power for electricity and water heating at the to justify the cost and effort. For the short-term at Olympic Athletes’ Village is proof that an average least, the site has been made safer than it was prior home can be directly powered by the sun's energy.