Can mega-events like the Olympics or the Euros make cities more sustainable?

Paris 2024 promises to be the most sustainable Olympic Games to date – and it makes a good case. It will be the first aligned (appropriately) to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and operating to an organisation‑wide carbon budget. Using 95% existing venues and 100% renewable energy, Paris targets 50% carbon cuts compared with London 2012.

There are sustainable food policies and long‑term nationwide commitments for daily exercise programmes in schools and workplaces.

Mega-events as catalysts for sustainability

But, surely, even Paris won’t silence the perennial debate on whether mega‑events are sustainable. I’m pondering if that’s even the right question. The demand for “I was there” experiences and ever more spectacular events keeps growing.

So while the events sector continues to get its sustainability house in order, perhaps it’s also time to look through the other end of the lens. The world continues to urbanise at breakneck pace. The cities and nations that eagerly pitch to host Olympic Games, expos and World Cups also face the daunting challenges of meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – not just global box‑ticking, but, for many, a measure of survival against the environmental odds.

With this backdrop, what leap of imagination or paradigm shift of project management is required for mega‑events to transform from sustainability bogeymen to potent catalysts, helping cities meet their own SDG ambitions?

It’s a question that I and some colleagues from the University of Oxford set as a research hypothesis. Through extended interviews with nearly 40 of the most senior figures in Games organisation, city leadership, event franchises and academia, we asked if mega‑events had the power to drive such change and, if so, how?

The answer: a resounding “yes” – the Olympic Games can inspire proverbial mountains to move, but only if:

event franchises continue to adapt towards prioritising long‑term impacts over vanity construction
premeditated governance structures elide seamlessly from planning to delivery to legacy
public funding is hypothecated towards long‑term positive impacts over plugging last‑minute holes

Events as urban development

But the biggest ‘if’ turned out to be one of ambition. Mega‑events, the experts concluded, can drive fundamental sustainability only if city leaders view them not just as events, but as 20- or 30‑year urban development projects.

Communities must assess the big‑ticket items they need to nail before 2050 – perhaps climate change or the transition to public transport, sustainable housing, public health or community cohesion. And events aren’t panaceas, so communities should prioritise and assess whether hosting could be the pivot for real change. If dispassionate analysis agrees, then (and only then) the community should seek the event and the franchise reward them.

The Games in London 2012 and Rio 2016

To test our expert views we applied them to case studies of the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Of all the long‑term impacts imagined in both Games, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London continues to shine brightly, 20 years after its conception – clear in vision, still thriving through pragmatic governance.

Our full research will be published shortly, but more evidence of fresh project thinking around major events can be found in the recent ‘Inquiry into the Power of Events – Spirit of 2012’, where I was also a commissioner. Spirit (a London 2012 legacy lottery grant giver) took evidence over 12 months, concluding that: “Long‑term impact and a clear plan for ‘what next’ must be the driver for the decision to bid for or host a major event.”

Spirit is now working with government, cities and franchise owners to bring about policy change and optimise the value of events for citizens. While we gasp at astounding sport in Paris and admire innovation that makes its Games the most sustainable so far, think ahead to 2032’s Olympic Games in Brisbane.

There, city leaders, encouraged by the International Olympic Committee’s new ‘dialogue’ process, opted not just to host a Games, but to help build the urban community they want for the next 30 years – a Games not just to inspire “faster, higher, stronger” athletes, but sustainable cities of the future.