Sochi greenest olympics ever?

Probably not. The most expensive Olympics open amid a welter of sustainability and human rights questions

The budget was certainly there to make it green: Russia has provided than $51bn, an all-time record, to make the event happen.

In 2009, organisers of Sochi games said they expected the event to be the greenest Olympics ever. They claimed there would be no waste, infrastructure would be built with a minimal impact on sensitive areas and sustainably sourced material would be used.

Sadly, actual events have been rather different. Many venues are built in Sochi national park, in the Caucasus Biosphere Reserve buffer zone in Western Caucasus – a World Heritage Site, as accredited by UNESCO.

Suren Gazaryan, a zoologist and member of the Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus (EWNC) group, was exiled from Russia and handed criminal charges for his campaigning work. He told TIME magazine in January, "The most dangerous and important part of the damage is the biodiversity lost in the area. Parts of the national park have been completely destroyed. This area was the most diverse in terms of plant and animal life in Russia."

While environmentalists denounced the environmental damage, claims that the Games would be "zero waste" appear to be false. In fact, the Associated Press reported it had found mountains of construction debris in an unlicensed landfill, indicating Russia had broken its promise to make the games zero waste. And, ominously, environmental activists have reported being harassed by officials.

Activists and residents who criticised and tried to oppose the development of Sochi were reportedly harassed and intimidated by government officials.

Chemical giant Dow Chemical, which has a record of toxic spills in the US and elsewhere, has been asked to offset the emissions from the games. It expects to remove the equivalent to removing approximately 102,000 cars from US roads.

Dow is offsetting these emissions with a mix of completed and ongoing projects, principally in Russia, but also in Brazil and South Korea, which will host the next two Olympics, and other regions. These include farming enhancements, such as low-till farming methods; building efficiency gains via better insulation and other technologies; and industrial upgrades. In the US, Dow is deploying a share of the verified offsets generated from capturing and recycling methane at a waste dump in Georgia.

And environmental questions are not the only green problem, following the introduction of new legislation, the Russian government has forbidden the "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations", which makes it illegal to campaign for gay rights and same-sex relationships.

Although authorities assured competing nations that the legislation would not affect athletes, the traditional pavilion to celebrate LGBT sportspeople, called Pride House, has been forbidden in Sochi. This is because it could apparently "undermine the security of the Russian society and the state and provoke social-religious hatred, which is the feature of the extremist character of the activity".

This move led to huge criticism from the global LGBT community. It even convinced some of the world’s leaders, including presidents of Canada, US and France, not to attend the games.

The only other sponsor with a clear environmental angle to its Olympics pledge is GE. The conglomerate is supplying two very high efficiency "aero-derivative" gas turbines to help power the games. The units, which will provide both base load and peak load power to the Olympics village and venues, feature GE’s latest emissions technology.

Evolved from airplane jet engines, the model is designed to ramp up and down in less than 10 minutes, which makes it well suited to pair with the variable output of wind turbines, solar panels and other renewable energy systems.

That’s not to say that renewable energy will be powering Sochi. Despite early estimates of promising potential for geothermal, solar, hydro and wind and some building-level projects, there is scant evidence that any substantial new renewables capacity has been built.

And, lest we forget, lurking beneath the immediate question of sustainability is a deeper worry about climate change, particularly as it impacts the viability of future winter sports.

In winter playgrounds around the world, climate change is already degrading the seasonal conditions that skiers, boarders and others depend on. In Vancouver 2010, unseasonably warm weather forced the games to resort to extreme measures, such as hauling in stored snow.

Sochi 2014 also has been stashing snow, and is ready to deploy an army of energy-intensive earth-movers and snow-making systems to make ready for the games.

Valere Tjolle

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