The Greenest Event of Them All, Part 10: Challenges and Opportunities

This is the final week of the Green Event blog, and I wanted to bring a few issues home. Of all the issues that have been covered, one idea encompasses all of them, and more – event certification. In the marketplace today, we have been flooded with tips (and now twits) on green practices. Still, however, we must carefully differentiate the useful and relevant advice from the mere wives’ tales.

A green standard or certification offers all of this, and takes much of the guesswork out of ‘greening’. Of course, it must be credible, useful and based on sound data, as I discussed under standards and reporting. There is a long way to go in this world, however, and below I will highlight a few resources and discus what the future may hold.

The Potential Market is Large:

All events, no matter how different, share attributes in common. They require temporary resources, involve significant numbers of attendees, and can involve lots of public communication. Thus, the market for a green label, the market I have been implicitly addressing in the past blogs, stretches well beyond an athletic event. They include:

•Junior League Sports

•College Sports Championships

•Professional Sport Championships (PGA, NFL, NHL, FIFA)

•Concerts

•Weddings

•Art Exhibits

•Cultural Events

•Symphonies/Orchestral Performances

•Celebrations (National Day, Religious Holiday, New Year)

•Fairs

•Carnivals

Advice Doesn’t Cut It:

Green advice is a dime a dozen. Sure, it may seem easy to have google do the legwork for you, but your gradma’s gardening blog might not offer the most comprehensive thinking on reducing energy for Wrigley Field. Thanks to the internet, there have been hundreds of books published that purport environmental advice. E-books and blogs have changed the landscape in past years, and with negligible or zero online publishing costs, everyone can consider themselves an “informational” source. Thus, it’s a tricky job to publish a definitive guide to “green events”. Some interesting resources that have made it through the online clutter, however, are The Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman (who includes recent topics such as a Sustainable Music Festival in New Orleans – http://bit.ly/1wIRW) and The Green Bride Guide by Kate Harrison (http://www.thegreenbrideguide.com/).

You’ll Pay For Personal Service:

A few companies have used the complicated and cluttered world of green advice to their advantage, and offer personal, best-practice guidance tailored to your event. A consulting service can be the way to go for those events who have money (very few) and a large public audience, where the event’s reputation is at stake if the attendees catch a whiff of greenwash. The rest of us, however, might not find the exorbitant costs palatable. In my work, although I can’t personally attest to the quality of their practices, I have come across two notable event consultancies.

Helios Partners is a sports marketing company that has transitioned into green event management consulting. In July, they announced a sustainable sport partnership service, including “green-in-kind” value sponsorships, carbon management, green venue development, and college and university guidance.

The Green Event Company (www.greeneventco.com) is a consultancy providing green management based in Boulder, Colorado. A unique feature is that The Green Event Co is a registered B-Corporation, itself attesting to the social practices and principles under the B-Corporation brand.

Certifications Are Coming:

The GRI, ISO and GHG-protocol are, of course, incredibly broad and don’t specifically pertain to events themselves. Hitting closer to the spot, the Eco-Logo event certification CCD-095 is the Canadian company’s vision of an international event-specific standard, updated recently in 2009. The British have decided to move in the same direction, and the 2012 Olympics will be working off of BS8901, a new system of sustainable management guidelines that is heavily supported by online training, case studies, and webinars. However trite it may seem though, it’s unlikely that other international events, or those based in the United States, will publicly acknowledge that they have adhered to a British-based standard.

One idea that might bridge the remaining gap is to take a lesson from the Wedding Planning industry, which certifies professionals themselves. A Certified Wedding Planner (designated as such by the American Association of Certified Wedding Planners – AACWP – or institution in another country) can simplify the job. Event organizers hiring a sustainable concert/athletic/festival/younameit event planner can rest assured they are conforming to accepted standards while saving on the costs associated with bringing on an entire consulting team. I believe such a certification, if not already in development, is on the near horizon – and will be an opportunity I’ll be looking at in the future. After all, the AACWP is already working on a certified green wedding planner.

That concludes the Green Event blog, though stay tuned from time to time as updates may appear on the topic. It’s been a great time working at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and I, for one, will be watching to see how this world-wide event will turn out in February!

The Greenest Event of Them All Part 9: Sustainability/Environmental Reporting

 

London 2012 Olympic Organizing Commitee's Sustainability Process

l’étape de la planification

The planning phase of your event is where determining the correct criteria in Part 8 becomes essential; in accounting terms, this would be a Gap Analysis – essentially a forward-looking audit. This pre-planning will serve you well; you will know exactly which data you need to track, and the actual gathering of information will look less foreign and become routine.

You will want to track global measures that conform to accepted standards, but make sure you also monitor sustainability issues that may be critical to your local population. Perhaps air quality or aboriginal inclusion are topics that need to be addressed; if you are managing the Vancouver Lantern Festival, you might track the number of CFL lights, or non-chemical dyes used in lantern-making.

The Vancouver Olympics based its sustainability performance objectives on “bid commitments, best management practices of other Organizing Committees, and leading sustainability firms and input from sustainability experts.” These guidelines resulted in 6 broad objectives and an integrated management system that were developed 10 years before the 2010 Games, in what has to be the mother of all advance planning.  But realize that once your event is in the operational phase, changing existing environmental policies will feel like changing the engine of a jet airliner in midflight.

Also integrated into the planning phase should be your protocol; that is, a determination of who tracks each indicator and who will record the progress. A highly effective tactic – and one employed by the Olympics – is simply to make the reporting part of the job description for key employees. Another method is to build financial incentives on the group or individual level from day one. In this way, for example,  individual employees or groups might receive a bonus if they complete 100% of the reporting protocol you established.

Before and after your event all staff volunteers should be informed of their roles and how to address issues that arise. Processes should be in effect for inspections and checks of the sustainability criteria.  For example, this will ensure the waste is really being disposed of as you thought, or that recycled paper is actually being supplied.

Capturing details are absolutely critical for environmental indicators – you will find some employees become actively engaged and will formulate any number of reports; others will need more guidance. For example, you may decide to track GHG emissions embedded in paper consumption, but the person you designate must know to track numbers that can be converted into GHG emissions – such as lbs or sheets used – rather than financial sums which he or she may assume you want!

Implementation

As your event planning progresses, progress should be recorded to ensure that your team is on track for delivery. The GRI actually specifies formats for the annual sustainability reports – reports that are increasingly becoming as embedded as annual 10-k financial records. An added bonus: These progress reports can be used to develop communication and marketing material to retell your accomplishments later.

Telling environmental stories are more than just “fluff”. Regular communication of sustainability achievements provides a way for the lay audience to engage and understand why you are doing certain things. Like the infamous Caltrans building designed by Morphosis in Los Angeles, which might look like the ugliest and most obscene office tower in the world, the building is actually eminently functional and practical when you understand the huge underlying environmental considerations.

Great communication mediums for your event include: event signage (banners), press releases, famous/prominent spokespersons, facts and figures in presentations, websites, videos, and active signage (signage close to relevant sustainable features such as water fixtures, elevators, light switches, printers, etc).

Measuring Success

Gathering feedback from the communication measures you undertook is an essential part of measuring success. Feedback can be informal or formal, and public or internal. For example, VANOC has engaged local Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) at an early stage to help align the goals of the Olympics with the NGOs, as well as promote greater understanding within the environmental community. Gathering feedback through this process has greatly aided VANOC’s success working towards 2010.

A formal version of feedback will be an auditing and assessment of your protocol. This will give internal confirmation of your “green event” as well as external credibility that you held yourself up to an independent body and standard. In this context, a third-party validation or audit is a process to compare your established process against a standard or protocol; third-party verification or assessment will measure your reported results, to see if they meet minimum criteria. Both auditing and assessment are essential.

So there you have it – sustainability and environmental reporting in a nutshell. Hopefully this outline will provide some guidance to clear the fog of reporting, and get you on a fasttrack to success. Stay tuned next week for the next (and last) chapter in the Green Event series. 

The Greenest Event of Them All, Part 8: External Reporting and Indicators

GHG, GRI, ISO 14000 and 26000…With all the social and environmental reporting going on these days, how can events choose an appropriate tool to track and report results? The easy answer isn’t the way out – yes, all these environmental indicators are currently optional so you don’t NEED to report any – because you are already looking to set a higher standard and hold your event accountable for achieving positive results. And importantly, successfully implementing almost all of these standards now requires independent, third party accreditation, which greatly enhances the validity of your environmental program.

Let’s start with the basics. First you’ll remember the 9000-series quality management (six sigma) standards from the ISO (International Standard Organization) in the 1980s. More recently, the ISO extended its standards to include ENVIRONMENTAL management standards, the ISO 14000-series. Now, coming into effect in 2010, the ISO’s 26000 standards will provide SOCIAL (CSR) reporting standards.

The 14000 series of standards do not dictate what exact environmental indicators you must report but rather states processes you must have in place. For example, ISO 14001 and 14004 ask if there are adequate environmental management systems in place, 14015 governs environmental assessment(s) of the site area, 14040 covers Lifecycle Assessments (LCAs), and 14062, 14063 cover your environmental communication processes. Any one of these can be accredited by a third party.

The future 26000 guidelines will be similar to the 14000 series in that they will not dictate specific measurements or indicators, but rather ensure a system is in place to measure Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, the 26000-series scope is much broader, since it covers not just environmental but equality and economic management, and they WILL NOT be accredited. That is, a company can use 26000 guidelines, but can never say they are “ISO 26000 certified” as they can for other ISO standards. Likely because of the extremely broad scope of the 26000, the ISO decided not to limit their applicability by any means, leaving the implementation entirely voluntary.

The ISO guidelines are inherently compatible with GRI and GHG protocol standards. As mentioned before, ISO provides assurance that the correct SYSTEMS are in place; GRI and GHG specify what exactly should be tracked and monitored.

The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), developed in the 1990s, provides indicators for “sustainability” reporting, and covers environmental and social guidelines within an “ecological footprint”. The GRI indicators thus have a scope similar to the ISO 26000 guidelines, although the GRI focuses more in specific indicators rather than the reporting and management processes.

Lastly, the GHG Protocol is also compatible with ISO guidelines. Like the GRI, the GHG Protocol provides specific indicators for reporting, although unlike the GRI, the scope is limited to environmental greenhouse gas (GHG) indicators.

Since both GRI and GHG have specific indicators for environmental performance, and some companies use both, here the complication arises. The difficulty is aligning GHG definitions with their GRI equivalents, especially on carbon emissions. This is frustrating since tracking and reporting carbon (here I consider all carbon or carbon equivalents as CO2) has become the “big kahuna” indicator to report in recent years.

While this discussion can proceed much longer, I provided a brief chart (below) to compare the GHG and GRI indicators for carbon and energy emissions. Next week, we’ll cover in more detail how to align these reporting processes internally in your organization.

The Greenest Event of Them All Part 7: Getting There

Fuel Cell Bus

Let’s face it, there is no easy road to follow when talking about transportation. Event organizers face a trifecta of transportation constraints: permanent infrastructure, semi-permanent infrastructure, and temporary transit solutions – with only the latter in the full control of the event organizer.

One reason to select a LEED certified venue or neighborhood (yes, they have those too), which I spoke briefly to in Part 4, is LEED developers often gain points toward certification by ensuring access to and support for public transit. This means LEED buildings are often located near infrastructure such as rapid transit hubs or bus stations, have pedestrian-accessible sidewalks, and include showers for employees commuting by bike (or a crowded subway). A sporting event with many visitors, like a large office, requires a lot of logistical thinking around transportation. Choosing a venue located near rapid transit, and where visitors can walk and/or bike is the first option for those looking to green transportation.

Not all organizers have the power to choose their venue, however, and if you’re hosting anything other than the Olympics you likely won’t be funding the construction of a new subway line anytime soon. However, if the event is recurring – say, a yearly or seasonal competition at a downtown convention center or university campus – you may be able to work out semi-permanent infrastructure solutions. Universities do this all the time, of course. Colleges across the country have influenced city governments to move bus-stops to roads near football fields and performance centers, increasing mobility of visitors and athletes. They have also partnered more recently with companies such as Zip Car, to provide vehicle time-sharing options to commuters.

Don’t bow your head in dismay if the above options are unavailable to you. Hosting a one-time event on a sub-Olympian budget? Temporary infrastructure is perhaps the most important solution. Work with your city/municipal government, and they can guide you in locating bicycle racks, providing increased security measures (for bicyclists and pedestrians), and drawing visitor maps outlining directions by foot or bicycle. If you are impacting a significant portion of the local municipality, you may be able to reroute a city bus to provide a temporary transit solution. Lastly, many event organizers capitalize on motorcoaches (which can save 64% of fuel compared to driving the same distance), old school busses, or encourage athletes to carpool the day of the event. (The downside to motorcoaches is their singular departure and arrival schedules, when visitors may want to arrive and depart at various times throughout the event).

Prices for providing public transportation do not have to be outrageous. However, there will be a cost, and more non-drivers means less revenue from the parking lots. One option would be to include the cost of bus or transit in the ticket price. While raising the cost of admission, this has the positive effect of not making the consumer feel extorted by making an additional payment for transit or parking. Another option is to charge for personal parking based on number of occupants in the vehicle. Besides encouraging friendly socializing and tailgating, if fewer parking spaces are needed overall, there might be more room left for selling those pre-game hot dogs.

The Greenest Event of Them All, Part 6: Paper Use

Paper Mill, Powell River, British Columbia

Last week I waxed about waste management systems, this week I will focus in on how to manage and source paper.

Event organizers will recognize two distinct uses of paper. Internal paper is paper which is intended to be used in-office, from daily memos, white papers and meeting information to event-time score sheets, news briefs and other postings (for example, those tacked on corkboards or handed to announcers).

External paper is intended for printing tickets, spectator information, maps, annual reports and other public company filings leading up to the Event. External printing normally requires special paper, sizing and/or finishing and may either be purchased through local or national print shops.

Although you will likely have the most control over internal print jobs, realize you can select which external print shops you use as well. Harvested trees are sent to a few, very large mills North America, located mostly on the East Coast. Print shops throughout the country then purchase paper from these mills for commercial jobs. Events like the Vancouver Olympics face one of two options to external paper purchasing: a) have the finished printed materials shipped from an East-Coast print shop, or b) purchase from a local Vancouver print shop which has sourced paper from the East Coast. From a socially-minded (and – perhaps – environmentally friendly) viewpoint, the Vancouver Olympics has chosen to support local jobs by sending external paper requests through Vancouver-based print shops. Some shops, in addition to providing jobs, also guarantee FSC certified processes and other environmental benefits such as carbon emission offsets.

Internal paper stock is critical for your organization to manage effectively. Using recycled paper is one of the surest ways to communicate and cultivate an environmental ethos in the workplace or at your event. According to http://www.papercalculator.org, a simple tool developed by the Environmental Defense Fund, 1 ton of paper (about 100 reams at 20lbs per ream) containing 30% recycled content will save 3 tons of wood biomass, 0.4 tons of carbon, and over 3,000 gallons of water compared to 1 ton of virgin paper stock.

However, many unsubstantiated myths continue to lambast recycled paper for commercial purposes. Simply put, complaints of paper jams, attraction to dust, and shoddy texture are symptoms from the past; with 20+ years of recycling technology improvements, even 100% recycled paper can be used successfully in any office setting. Some of these views were expanded in the Conservatree Paper Listening Study from 2003 – 2009, found here: http://www.conservatree.org/paperlisteningstudy/RecyEquip/envgroups.htm.

Use simple tools like these to convey the environmental benefits to your procurement division when sourcing paper for your event. Recycled content may or may not cost more depending on your location, but hopefully the benefit of sending a strong environmental message will make the selection a no-brainer.

The Greenest Event of Them All: Part 5, What goes in must go out…

The recycle bin often stands as the unsung hero of an event. While the main focus of the audience might not be on waste – and indeed, it should not be – handling of the waste is one of the most visible signs of addressing sustainability.

The first critical step of waste management is to know what your waste footprint will look like. Are you expecting to serve food that provides organic material for composting? If so, you can break out the compost bins. Are there large amounts of cardboard packaging from shipping/receiving that can be reused? As organizer of the event, you will likely be asked to choose between bidding contractors, each of whom will provide different services and quote various prices. You might have a preference for a certain landfill – say, methane-to-energy – or prefer a company that plans to recycle 85% of the waste.

Secondly, once you have a rough idea of the event footprint, be sure you understand exactly where the waste is going. It is easy to envision a public-relations disaster if that 85% is not being reused as you thought. For example, methane-to-energy is a term used for landfills that produce methane gas from decomposition of organic material in the fill. That methane gas is then captured by pipes in the landfill, and burned to produce energy. From a carbon point of view, this is a very efficient process, as the methane (a greenhouse gas) is burned and reused as heat. Waste-to-energy, on the other hand, denotes burning all solid waste at the disposal site…and that doesn’t look so good from a carbon standpoint. As you may have guessed, some contractors still do not distinguish between the two terms.

Thirdly, it is critical to measure the waste produced. Not all waste contractors keep track of truckloads or tons of solid waste, they simply bill for the duration of the event. If you are hosting an event of significant size, disposal companies might not even have had previous experience organizing for such a project. All of which means if you want to track and report your “waste sustainability”, you must be proactive with the measurements you need. For example, sanitary landfills must report and record the amount and nature of solid waste by the ton, and you can ask your waste management company in advance to provide you with this data. Also record the amount of waste diverted to recycling, compost, and other reuse.

Now that we’ve covered how to manage waste from the back-end, let’s turn our attention to what the guests will see. As I said before, know what your footprint will look like. If you will have food and can legally compost (see your local municipality for compost rules) then you will definitely want to provide compost bins at each waste station. Bins can be as simple as a lid-less cardboard box with a plastic bag lining the inside that can be removed when full.

Educate your staff and have clear labeling for visitors on how to use the compost and recycle bins. It is important to list what food can be included (organic waste, peels, rinds, etc.) and what may be recycled. I have seen events with up to six bins at each station; one for aluminum cans, plastic bottles, mixed paper, white paper, compost, and trash.

Sound like a lot of work? To keep your job easy at the end of the day, then, minimize the use of waste BEFORE it gets to the bin. Limit give-aways. Purchase only what is absolutely needed for the event. Try for all-electronic registration and documentation. If you have to use paper, use FSC certified, print double sided, and use the greatest recyclable content your budget will allow.

Follow these steps, and you have tackled one of the biggest components to hosting truly sustainable event.

The Greenest Event of them all, Part 4: Choosing the Right Venue

Second Beach Pool. Photo at "http://vancouver.ca/Parks/rec/pools/index.htm"

Looking to green your event? It all comes down to location, location, location. LEED buildings are designed to give occupants assurance that certain energy-saving features are installed, such as user-interface devices that call attention to simple things like turning off unnecessary lighting. However, LEED-certified venues are fare and few between, especially those designed for sporting events. Here are a few tips for conserving energy in the rest of those places.

Managing electricity – set electronic timers, if any. If there are no timers, staff and athletes can be instructed to turn off all lights when not in use and when away at night. This is easier said than done, but especially applicable for summer events, since natural lighting will be more prominent. One way is to place stickers under the light switches in bathrooms and offices reminding guests to hit the switch on their way out. If purchasing or installing appliances for the event, choose those appliances with energy-star (lo-energy) rating and compact fluorescent lighting.

Remember this is an ATHLETIC event, and it is possible to advise guests and athletes to use the stairs when possible, and avoid the elevator or escalator. Walking a flight of stairs is an easy way for athletes to begin to warm up, and getting the blood flowing is a great way to relieve cramping and stiffness in attendees who are sitting during the event.

Heating and Cooling – air conditioning is a key factor for indoor events in the summer and winter, such as swimming, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling and volleyball. When possible, use fans, which consume far less energy than air-conditioning units. Secondly, ensure your air-conditioning unit has been properly commissioned, which is one of the biggest (and cheapest to fix) sources of wasted energy.

For winter events, check that the venue is adequately weather-proofed. Extra insulation can be easily added by adding weather stripping or caulking to cover gaps in doorways, windows and other openings, which will reduce drafts and thus the heating load.

Lastly, don’t forget to monitor your energy use! This is a critical measure of success for your green-event program. In order to prove to those who are funding the event (not to mention guests and athletes) that you have made a difference, an easy way is to break out the energy bill showing kilowatt hours (kWh) of usage. Critically, it is important to get estimates or actual reports of the standard energy consumption in the venue prior to your event, as you can use this number to see how your savings stack up.

The Greenest Event of them all, Part 3: Setting the Stage – Accounting for Temporary Energy

Vancouver, English Bay at Sunset

What’s a big difference between hosting the entire Snowboard World Championships and an event such as the Men’s Parallel GS at the Olympics? If you guessed about 20,000 people, you’re right. While the former might draw 2,000 people in total, one Winter Olympic event will accommodate 10 times as many people on average…and Summer Olympic events are 2-3 times larger still. And all these people require expert planning for a huge increase in energy use – heating, electricity and/or air conditioning – which places a considerable financial and environmental load on the existing generating capacity.

But wait, don’t large stadiums fill this many people all the time? A few NFL arenas routinely accommodate over 80,000 spectators, and many sports boast giant ball parks, yet these stadia are built connected to the power grid and normally don’t require hundreds of propane tanks or diesel generators to operate on a daily basis.

But athletic events which occur occasionally (such as Championships), as well as premier events which overfill their venues, require planning for temporary energy.

Financially, the use of generators is a mixed bag. They allow the event manager flexibility to deploy backup power and heating when and where it is needed, but can be logistically challenging and expensive. And some events require backup power. The consequences of a lighting outage in the middle of the Opening Ceremonies would be a gigantic reputational blow – so much so that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has demanded triple or even quadruple redundancy in some venues.

Environmentally-speaking, it pays to minimize the use of generators as much as possible. Diesel generators in particular are less efficient that the large power plants behind the electrical grid. According to the GHG protocol, it takes 375 liters of diesel to contribute one ton of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere. And an event such as the Torino Olympics in 2006 burns around 8,000,000 liters of fuel.

For 2010, Vancouver has considered several solutions for reducing generator use. The Games’ urban location and cooperation with BC energy giant BC Hydro has made one solution possible, a decision to install dedicated hi-voltage lines to large temporary venues from various substations within the city. While this may be impractical for other events to replicate, Vancouver has also worked with contractors to minimize the use of generators where possible, from reducing the number of backup heating generators (heating takes less time to be noticed by spectators, as opposed to lighting) to eliminating the need for warm-start generators.

Yet possibly the most important step that Vancouver is taking to reduce fuel consumption is actively tracking and reporting the amount of energy used. In the event-planning industry, it is usually tricky to tease out kilowatt usage from financial receipts – and the financial costs themselves are not always disclosed. Therefore, ensuring contractors and vendors provide energy reports along with the billing is critical to accounting for and reducing the environmental footprint of temporary energy.

The Greenest Event of them all, Part 2: Olympic-sized Offsetting

"Sequester Carbon Here"

Where did the emissions go?  Part of choosing a sustainable legacy for the Games meant choosing a local offset provider that could support BC and Canada in meeting provincial and nation-wide emission reductions.  Choosing a local provider not only means supporting jobs in the Greater Vancouver basin, but also supporting green technology and energy efficiency projects that are developed and implemented close to home.

As part of the traditional role of Olympic Sponsors, the offsets to the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be donated as value-in-kind to VANOC.  Aside from direct investment from the Government and media broadcast revenue, this type of support is the most critical to Olympic events.  Coca-Cola provides the Games with its beverage needs (now including coffee), GM supports with a hybrid fleet of cars and busses, ACER technology is used by the IT department and staff, and so on. 

Part of the difficulty of committing to donate future offsets for the Games comes down to accurately measuring the footprint.  Offsetters has committed to reducing the direct emissions, and will encourage other sponsors to purchase offsets to cover VANOC’s indirect emissions.  Since the largest portion of carbon emissions has yet to occur (traditional GRI principles are designed to measure current emissions when applied to business) it is unclear exactly how many offsets will be needed.  The 2007-2008 Sustainability Report concluded on 110,000 tCO2e direct and 190,000 tCO2e indirect, although VANOC has continuously undertaken energy efficiency improvements and an updated estimate will be provided in the 2009-2010 Sustainability Report to be released this October.  Moreover, accounting for all emissions means anticipating hard-to-measure numbers such as air travel emissions for accredited visitors and staff, and embodied emissions in the construction of existing venues.  Thirdly, as soon as the Games’ are over, media attention will wane and VANOC will close its doors, making it critical to assign responsibility for reductions to a credible 3^rd party. 

Offsetters – the chosen supplier – has plans to develop a portfolio of offsets, where offsets come online and will be retired post-2010.  Ensuring the offset portfolio is spread across multiple projects with varying timelines will mitigate some of the risk inherent in long-term projects.  The certification system will either rely on a BC-based system or the International Gold Standard, which the company supports as equally stringent.  Potential projects might include fuel switching (substituting coal/natural gas for biomass waste) energy curtains (installing better insulation in greenhouses), and ground-source heat pumps (substituting natural gas electricity used in heating).

Excerpt from June 9th article in the Vancouver Sun: “Offsetters becomes an official Olympic supplier by providing Vanoc with offset projects that will reduce at least 110,000 tonnes of carbon emissions…[Offsetters president] Tansey said Offsetters has essentially underwritten 110,000 tonnes of offsets for Vanoc and remains “very confident” it can convince Games sponsors and participants to offset the additional 190,000 tonnes.”

The Greenest Event of them all, Part 1: Olympic News From the Trenches

Hello, and welcome blog readers! This summer I am working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), located in – you guessed – Vancouver, British Columbia, home to the modest slogan “the best place on earth”. I will be reporting weekly on sustainability issues as they relate to the Olympic Games and large event planning in general, covering topics ranging from carbon emissions and accounting to procurement, energy use, food and waste control, and more.

This first section focuses on the carbon emission profile of the 2010 Games and historical attempts to go “Carbon Neutral” in previous Games.

1992 was the year that introduced the abstract concept “sustainability” to the mainstream modern generation, with the Rio Declaration and new legions of devoted fans focusing on a “triple bottom line” of economic, environmental and social maximization. In 1994 the Lillehammer Games ran with this growing movement and became the first “ecological” Games. Looking back however, environmental planning for a town of 25,000 is far from what would be sustainable for most modest-sized cities, not to mention carbon was left off the table.

It wasn’t until 2000 that Sydney, in a brilliant contribution to modern vocabulary, unveiled the “Green Games” strategy, which, among other things, focused on a low-carbon profile. Now that carbon had become a measurable factor, host countries quickly followed to compete. Salt Lake promised a carbon neutral Games in 2002, although a questionable tree-planting initiative left many wondering about the validity of the “offsets”. Four years later, Turin broke ground with Italy’s first comprehensive Strategic Environmental Assessment. Although Turin reported that its carbon mitigation and reduction strategy was a success, no post-Games validation of this claim has appeared. And the simple lack of reporting for Beijing last summer made many question if carbon had become reduced to a token consideration. (Note, however, Beijing dealt with many other pressing environmental concerns.)

These were the challenges Vancouver and London faced when bidding to host the first “Sustainable Games” in 2010 and 2012, a title that encompasses both social and environmental legacies, and recognizes the necessity of independent verification and comprehensive pre and post-event planning. For Vancouver, this means tracking VANOC’s carbon footprint from Day 1 – winning the bid in 2003 – until the Games are finished in March 2010.

How much carbon is there? The David Suzuki Foundation, a Canada-based consultancy, estimated a carbon footprint of 300,000 tonnes CO2e for the Vancouver Games (this compares to 500,000 tonnes CO2e for Salt Lake and 3,500,000 tonnes CO2e for London), which will be partially mitigated by increased efficiency, reductions in energy use, and purchases of carbon offsets.

As with everything new, the move towards a unified carbon standard is slow. While most analysts now use “greenhouse gas scope” measurements – and in fact London will be tracking emissions based on GHG Scope 1, 2, and 3 – Vancouver has classified emissions as Direct and Indirect. These loosely correspond to Scope 1 and 2 for Direct and Scope 3 for Indirect. Additionally, emissions from infrastructure construction in Vancouver – construction which unlike London is managed by a separate corporation – are outside either Direct or Indirect classifications.

The most notable aspect of VANOC’s carbon reduction plan, however, is the commitment to purchase verified, secure carbon offsets that will be transparent and verifiable by third parties and the general public. On June 3rd, VANOC announced a first-ever sponsorship agreement with Offsetters, a BC-based corporation which will provide official carbon offsets to the Olympic Games and Olympic Games Sponsors.

This new relationship brings many questions. Having an offset sponsor for other sponsors is similar to asking McDonald’s be the official Happy Meal® supplier not just to the Games themselves, but to GM, GE and Coca-Cola as well. The coming weeks will see the questions surrounding sponsorship and branding rights ironed out in legal agreements. For now, however, Vancouver 2010 looks set to make new inroads in sustainability.