Was it sustainability gold for the London Olympics?

While our athletes strived for gold at the London Olympics 2012 (achieving seven gold medals, 16 silver and 12 bronze), the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) tried to achieve the ‘most sustainable Games ever’ and match the sustainability standard first set back in 2000 by Sydney.

The bar for achieving a gold medal performance for a ‘sustainable games’ was set high and based on WWF’s One Planet Vision. The city even set up an independent watchdog for LOCOG called the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 (CSL) and word from it is that London has surpassed Sydney by looking at a far wider definition of sustainability.

According to reports in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, the buildings should receive gold, recycling and water efforts should be awarded silver, while renewable energy was completely disqualified.

Renewable energy was the underachiever for the London Games and its target will not be met, mainly because a wind energy project was cancelled and there was no investment in solar and biofuels. LOCOG did employ energy conservation measures and green electricity suppliers but the CSL said it could have been so much better. “Unfortunately, LOCOG’s energy conservation plan was developed too late to engage venue managers effectively,” says Chair of CSL Shaun McCarthy.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) was responsible for the building of the infrastructure. All the permanent infrastructure was specified to deliver 15% greater energy efficiency and the velodrome achieved double that at 30% thanks to its sustainably sourced timber and natural light and ventilation.

The Olympic Stadium is the most lightweight stadium that has ever operated. The roofing truss was constructed from unwanted gas pipelines from a North Sea oil project and an estimated 40% of the structure’s concrete was made of recycled material. Olympic Sustainability Ambassador Kevin McCloud said the building’s roof is made from steel cable instead of girders, which saved 1000 tonnes of steel. Overall, a tenth as much steel was used as its equivalent in Beijing four years ago.

The aquatics centre on the other hand only just passed sustainability standards. It’s all concrete and steel, but water used to clean the swimming pool filters will be recycled for toilet flushing.

All timber used in construction was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Paper consumption was minimised with packaging required to be either compostable or recyclable and meeting European standard EN 13432.

The London Games also achieved positive success in areas of sustainably sourced supplies such as timber, food and even the victory bouquet of flowers. Jane Packer got the assignment for finding, designing and producing 4400 victory bouquets. It was a difficult task as all of the flowers had to be grown in the UK, the packaging had to be completely recyclable, they had to be produced by local people and all of the plants have to be re-used. The rose bushes will be offered for sale to the public as soon as the London 2012 Games have ended.

But, it’s the not so glamorous membrane bioreactor which uses bacteria for wastewater treatment and the energy centre that uses waste heat to heat and cool buildings that have achieved winning success at the Games.

Producing energy for the site through a biomass boiler using woodchip fuel, a combined cooling heat and power (CCHP) plant capture the heat generated as a by-product of electricity production and is up to 30% more energy efficient than traditional generations.

Thames Water’s Old Ford water recycling plant (WRP), on the Olympic Park in Stratford, uses state-of-the-art treatment processes to turn north Londoners’ sewage into non-drinking standard water for irrigating greenery and flushing toilets. Thames Water developed the wastewater plant under a seven-year build-own-operate contract with the Olympic Park legacy company. It was designed and funded with the collaboration of the ODA. EPC work was carried out by Black & Veatch, while the membrane bioreactor units were supplied by Siemens Memcor.

As the largest WRP built in the UK to date, the plant will serve as a benchmark for future water recycling plants in the increasingly water-scarce south of England. Its daily output of 574,000 litres - enough for 80,000 loo flushes every day - goes into a pipe network separate from the tap water supply, helping reduce the park’s reliance on premium-quality, drinking-grade water by up to 58%. But drinking water was still a problem during the Games, with queues at most venues to refill bottles.

Similar to Sydney, a once brownfield degraded industrial area has been transformed to parkland, with an emphasis on encouraging the return of biodiversity. A ‘soil hospital’ was set up on the Olympic Park during construction that washed, sieved and shook the soil free from contaminants, producing clean material which could then be re-used on the park.

Over 90.9 million litres of contaminated groundwater was treated using innovative techniques, including injecting compounds into the ground, generating oxygen to break down harmful chemicals.

With the Paralympics still to come, it’s too early to say if the legacy of the Games will be positive but what will help is the London Legacy Development Corporation, which was set up right from the start to manage it into the future. The new-found popularity of East London, long-term transport infrastructure improvements and some purpose-built facilities and sustainable housing all should remain for the  benefit of the city.