The bar has never been so high. In London 2012 and Vancouver 2010 certain offsetting schemes were used to compensate partly carbon footprint of the events. However, the 100% carbon-neutrality goal has never been put forward before at any international sport competition.
Just imagine how much energy and resources are needed to organize such a big event as the Olympics. This includes construction of facilities, lighting and heating of stadiums, hotels and restaurants, air flights carrying participants and spectators, daily work of the organizers, etc. The team of Russian and international experts has calculated the direct carbon footprint of the forthcoming Games in Sochi, which, in their opinion, will be about 340-360 thousand tons of CO2 – almost as much as the annual emissions of a small state, like Andorra or Belize!
The question is how the organisers are going to achieve such an ambitious goal to make the Sochi Games zero-carbon. The idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the energy efficiency, using renewable energy sources (first of all, wind mills and solar panels) to generate electricity, applying low-carbon materials and environmentally-friendly technologies when constructing the facilities. If some emissions cannot be avoided, for example CO2 emissions from air flights of the participants, they will be offset through various environmental projects in Russia, which will be aimed at climate change mitigation, adaptation, or nature conservation. One of the examples would be a project to protect the natural habitat of the Amur tiger and snow leopard in the Bikin River Basin at the Russia’s Far East. Therefore, the emissions from the Olympics will be fully offset by the implementation of the projects rather than through the purchase of carbon certificates, as it was done previously.
In spite of the controversy around the environmental aspects of the Sochi 2014 (especially the damage done to the Caucasian Biospere Reserve), the Games still have a real chance to become the first carbon-neutral Olympics in the history. What’s more important is that the ‘carbon-neutral Olympic Games’ campaign will send a message to the millions of viewers around the world, and particularly in Russia, about climate change threat and the role of each person in tackling this problem through reducing individual carbon footprint.
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Sebastian Moll 
