There was a lot of brouhaha in the days leading up to the delayed 2020 Olympic Games held in Tokyo in 2021 when organisers announced that athletes would sleep on bed frames made from recycled cardboard, and mattresses made from polyethylene (just a big word for the most widely used plastic in the world) materials that would be recycled after the games.
In an ambitious move to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gases generated (carbon footprint) by the Games, organisers announced that all the athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Village would sleep on cardboard beds which would later be recycled into paper products, and mattresses that would later be recycled into plastic products.
Organisers of the games were seeking ways of reducing greenhouse gases which make the earth warmer than it would be without them, thereby posing danger to life on earth in the long term.
Being one who is mindful of the environment, it made perfect sense to me until I remembered one weighty issue.
How would bed frames made of recycled cardboard support the weight of, say, a wrestler or weightlifters competing at the Games.
A cardboard bed for wrestlers when local evidence pointed to something else? Weighing in at 285 kilograms, Yamamotoyama is the heaviest Japanese-born sumo wrestler in history, and the 38-year-old is also thought to be the heaviest Japanese ever.
And would it survive those of us who turn and toss in bed in search of the best sleeping position?
But data from the previous edition of the Olympics came to the rescue of the organisers.
The beds were designed to carry weight of around 210kg, which is heavier than any athlete weighed at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
In the end, a total of 18,000 beds were used at the Olympics, which were a demonstration of unity and solidarity as athletes from all over the world came together after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another 8,000 beds were used for the Paralympics held days later.
Among other measures to reduce carbon emissions from the Games, all medals were made from metal extracted from recycled consumer electronics (including about 6.2 million used mobile phones) and the Olympic torch was made from aluminium waste.
The victory celebration podiums were made from recycled household and marine plastic waste, and electricity for the two championships came from renewable sources.
As human activity, sports is both a victim of, and a contributor to global warming.
These are seemingly small but practical steps organisers of sports events can take to reduce the carbon footprint of championships.
The aim is to achieve what the United Nations Climate Action refers to as net zero – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible while ensuring that the remaining emissions are re-absorbed from the atmosphere, for instance by oceans and forests.
The 2022 Fifa World Cup hosts Qatar went one step ahead. According to Fifa’s annual report for 2022, Qatar World Cup was a game-changer in terms of organising a sustainable tournament.
There was no need for internal air travel, and all stadiums were 30 percent more energy efficient and consumed less water than international benchmarks, the report says.
Recycled water vapour from cooling systems in the stadiums was used to irrigate the surrounding stadium landscape, and 90 percent of temporary diesel generators were replaced by electric sub-stations providing greener grid power and reducing air pollution.
“The ecological imperative to avoid, reduce, re-use and recycle was a defining policy of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 from the early planning stages, reflecting the organisers’ leadership and commitment to divert all tournament waste from landfill,” the report says.
The report says there was tournament-wide recycling of plastic, aluminum, cardboard, paper and glass and composting of waste food and composable tableware at all stadiums, training camps and other official sites.
Japan and Qatar pulled all stops to ensure environmental sustainability for the 2020 Olympic Games and the 2022 Fifa World Cup.
This is food for thought for organisers of global sporting championships locally. In the past five years, Kenya has hosted no less than five global sports events.
They include Safari Sevens Rugby, World Athletics Under-18 Championships, World Athletics Continental Tour (Kip Keino Classic), Magical Kenya Open Golf Championship, World Athletics Under-20 Championships, the World Rally Championship Safari Rally, and World Athletics Cross Country Tour (Sirikwa Classic), among others.
Sadly, some companies engage in greenwashing. They sponsor local tournaments in which they spend more money marketing themselves as being environmentally friendly than on minimising their environmental impact.
Local organisers of sporting championships must stop treating us to cheap public relations exercises under the guise of organising environmentally sustainable sporting events.
Cut the greenwashing and go beyond standing on expensive carpets while planting ceremonial trees during championships. BY DAILY NATION