How to ‘green’ the soccer World Cup

By Tom Mapham
Environmental issues will have to fight for attention from the 2010 World Soccer Cup organisers, a Finnish expert said on Friday.
During her address at the SciFest in Grahamstown, Finnish scientist Karoliina Luoto warned that whilst looming deadlines for stadium construction may be the highest priority for local organisers, forgetting about the environmental effects of the sporting event could be suicidal. “Major sporting events always impact on the local environment but the effects can be limited through careful planning, at the same time the events offer opportunities to educate people on sustainable development,” said Luoto, an environmental co-ordinator from the Finnish Sports Federation.
To make the most of the soccer World Cup would require long-term planning. “There’s no time to waste,” said Luoto, who worked with ECOmass, a first of its kind project that made the 2005 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki a more environmentally- friendly event.
Compared to the big stadium projects already under way in South Africa, ECOmass’ interventions will require more imagination and less concrete. But the projects could create jobs.
Luoto suggests setting up staffed recycling depots at stadiums and within the organisers’ operations. “Most 2010 tourists will be used to recycling in their home countries,” she said. Finnish homes are required by law to recycle their waste. 2010 World Cup organisers expect three million foreign visitors for the event.
An environmentally-friendly event requires co-operation between the organisers, local government and business. Recycling depots where consumers are able to separate their waste for more efficient recycling would need to be organised by municipalities so that the sorted waste can be used in some way afterwards, she said.
If local people are trained to educate consumers the impact on public awareness can be a secondary benefit of the initiative.
Sporting events also contribute to carbon emissions, one of the primary human causes of climate change. During events, the greatest contributors to carbon emissions are transport vehicles and power hungry stadiums. In Helsinki, the use of renewable energy sources, such as wind power, helped reduce carbon emissions at stadiums by 32 tons during the Athletics World Championships.
“Reducing traffic is difficult because we want spectators to come to the matches,” said Luoto. In Helsinki visitors were encouraged to use bikes or to walk along routes that were mapped out from different parts of the city.
South Africa would avoid traffic congestion and unnecessary carbon emissions by making its public transport system more efficient and user-friendly, Luoto said. At the Athletics World Championships in Helsinki, 92 percent of carbon emissions due to the event were from passenger traffic.
Unlike Finland, which includes more than 200000 lakes, water conservation needs to be high on South Africa’s World Cup agenda, Luoto added.
German stadiums, which hosted last year’s World Cup, required 42000m³ of water a day. Rain water collection systems helped to service the need to keep fields green and South Africa needed to implement similar measures.
Members of the South African Local Organising Committee have visited the University of Technology in Helsinki where the ECOmass team is based.