The 2010 Vancouver Olympics just may end up being carbon neutral. At the recent World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games (VANCE) announced a target to neutralize up to 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from the Games.
To actualize this target, VANCE is currently in talks with major carbon offset management companies. It makes sense. If you are going to have Coca Cola and McDonalds as food and drink sponsors why not get a climate change organization to sponsor your greening efforts?
To come up with the 300,000 ton carbon offset target, VANCE relied on preliminary carbon emissions forecast prepared in 2007 by the David Suzuki Foundation and subsequently reviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The independent foundation predicted that, based on planning at that stage, the Games would produce an estimated 110,000 tons of direct carbon emissions and another 220,000 tons of indirect emissions from air travel by spectators and other participants, explains VANCE.
Clearly, any efforts to take responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions is a good thing, but sceptics might suggest that Canada is merely attempting to reconfigure, or maybe even greenwash, its much tarnished image.
The international eco-view of Canada has been much damaged over the last few years. Premier Steven Harper’s continued inactivity on climate change and Canada’s recent stalling tactics at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, hasn’t earned Canada any eco-friends of late. Add in the environmental disaster known as the Alberta Tar Sands, the continued bloody seal slaughter and Canada’s refusal to halt clearcut logging, even in light of a severely reduced market for the logs, and Canada’s green reputation may soon be on par with America’s international appeal during the Bush administration.
Greenwashing is often described as using green tactics to disingenuously spin products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in the use of resources or, in the case of the Vancouver Olympic Committee, by purchasing carbon offsets in the hopes of creating a greener, more palatable brand.
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