London 2012 find out it's not easy being green

AS Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive David Higgins and Kermit the Frog will tell you: ‘It's not easy being green'.

HOW GREEN ARE YOU? London 2012 might struggle to deliver on their renewable energy promises

It's virtually impossible to bid for an Olympics now without stressing your environmental credentials and promising to deliver the greenest Games ever.

In 1994 the Olympic Charter was amended and environment was included as the third pillar of Olympism, following after sport and culture.

London 2012's bid team had boldly vowed to produce 20 per cent of their Olympic Park's energy needs from renewal sources - but this target now looks ambitious following plans to scrap a planned 120 metre wind turbine on the site.

It's ten years since Sydney made the promise to put environmental issues at the heart of their organisation.

Athletes lived in what was, at the time, the world's largest solar village while water was widely recycled and sponsor Coca-Cola agreed to phase out its use of greenhouse-polluting HFCs in refrigeration worldwide.

However, in the end they fell well short of their targets - with campaigners dubbing Sydney the ‘pale-Green Games' and awarding only a bronze medal for organisers's environmental performance.

Things didn't get much better four years later in Athens.

For a country that basks in endless sunshine, the use of solar power was negligible.

As building work fell further and further behind schedule, prompting several frantic warnings from the International Olympic Committee, and the cost of security skyrocketed, following the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, care for the environment came lower and lower on the endless list of priorities.

China - a country whose economic growth is largely founded on its damaging emissions - also worked hard to prove just how green they were.

They shut down factories and prevented use of cars around the city - worried about the prospect of athletes competing in masks due to the polluted air. 

But they were temporary measures, soon lifted when the Olympic circus rolled out of town.

Many venues were ‘ecologically friendly' from a rainwater-capture system at the Bird's Nest to solar panels at the village and a high-efficiency thermal polymer skin that cloaked the Water Cube.

But in the end many of the promises made were just smog and mirrors.

London 2012 will rightly point to a huge clean-up of contaminated land around the Olympic Park and the revival of the stagnant Lea River as evidence of their commitment to the cause.

But British athletes achieving a fourth place finish on the medal table now seems much more achievable than organisers hitting their 20 per cent renewable energy target.

So Vancouver 2010 looks likely to remain the greenest Games ever. 

And you couldn't find a more verdantly coloured venue than Cypress Mountain - but that was only because there was no snow.

---

MORE BLOGS BY SPORTSBEAT'S JAMES TONEY

Are you ready for the London 2012 Olympic song?

Nothing revelatory for sport in Coalition Agreement

Meet the Olympic mascots - including a sperm with celestial flatulence

Chiles misses his chance to unveil London 2012 mascot

---