Environment
Leaves Long-Lasting Legacy on Current and Future
FIFA World Cups
Rooney to Ronaldinho Enjoy Climate-Friendly Tournament
in 2006 Courtesy of Pioneering ‘Carbon Offsets’
in Asia and Africa
Lausanne/ Nairobi, 1 December
2006--Environmental considerations are now firmly
part of the World Cup team as a result of measures
taken to green the 2006 tournament, the head of
the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said today.
Speaking at the launch of a
final report on the achievements of the ‘Green
Goal’, an initiative undertaken by the German
organizers of this year’s FIFA 2006 World Cup,
Achim Steiner said:” The German Local Organizing
Committee have put down a clear and unequivocal
environmental foundation from which future host
countries can now build”.
“Unlike the Olympics, the environment
has been something of an outsider at World Cups
but this has now changed and to my mind there
is no going back. Organizers of future FIFA World
Cup events will now have to consider playing the
environment up front as one of the leading strikers
in their planning and policy strategies. Otherwise
they risk own goals and off-sides from domestic
and international public opinion,” added the UN
Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director.
The legacy report on ‘Green
Goal’ highlights how—through a range of domestic
measures including the deployment of renewable
energy at stadia and boosting the use of public
and non-motorized transport by fans—significant
greenhouse gas emission reductions were achieved.
Indeed the 30-day tournament
will go down in history as the first ‘climate
neutral’ World Cup the report indicates.
In addition to domestic climate
friendly measures, the Organizers offset rises
in emissions in Germany through support of clean
energy schemes in India and South Africa—the host
country for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
The final report showed that
the amount of greenhouse gases saved by these
combined actions more than compensated for the
emissions generated by the tournament—so much
so that the flights to and from Germany by stars
like Rooney and Ronaldinho and FIFA officials
were also offset.
Mr Steiner, who was in Lausanne,
Switzerland, for the Global Forum for Sport and
Environment conference, said:” UNEP has been proud
to have been associated with the ‘Green Goal’
and not just for its achievement on climate but
for its achievements in areas from waste avoidance
to the harvesting of rainwater for pitches. We
stand ready to assist the organizers of the 2010
tournament in South Africa score their own Green
Goals and in doing so send a clear signal to organizers
of all mass audience events that environment deserves
top billing—is no longer a support act but a big
draw in its own right”.
Horst Schmidt, Senior Vice-President
of the Organizing Committee, said: “We are proud
to present the results achieved by the Green Goal.
They demonstrate that Germany grasped the opportunity
to present itself as a country that is friendly
towards guests, keen on sport and environmentally
aware”.
“We hope that the organizers
of large sporting events in the future will further
optimise Green Goal and that environmental protection
will be a firmly established, integral part of
the FIFA World Cup wherever the tournament is
organized,” he added.
The final report has been compiled
by the Oeko Institute, an independent body that
advised the German 2006 Local Organizing Committee
with the support of the German Federal Ministry
for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear
Safety.
Among the report’s recommendations
• FIFA should take a leaf out of the International
Olympic Committee’s well established policy of
including the environment in the bidding applications
of countries competing to host the event—other
football organizers, like UEFA and its EURO championships,
should also consider such measures.
“Green Goal has show how particularly important
it is to take account of environmental guidelines
and objectives in the planning of stadium infrastructure”
rather than trying to retrofit them after construction.
• Future World Cups should take into the wider
environmental impacts. “The 2006 World Cup showed,
better than any previous World Cup, that football
festivities are no longer restricted to stadiums.
Future environmental concepts will have to take
account also of open-air, public viewing events
and designated ‘fan routes’ to stadium”.
• ‘Gold Standard’ carbon offsets offer a way of
overcoming one of the biggest challenges facing
World Cup organizers—namely transport emissions.
Unlike the Olympics, the football matches take
place at numerous stadia spread across relatively
large geographical distances.
• Football associations travelling to World Cups
should also factor in their environmental footprint
especially that linked with air travel to and
from the host country.
• Official and national partners and suppliers
such as sponsors, providers of courtesy cars,
caterers and manufacturers of merchandise like
scarves and footballs can be part the environmental
success story if they have clear up front guidelines
and early involvement.
• Monitoring of environmental performance and
well drafted environmental awareness and communications
campaigns should be an integral part of future
World Cup strategies.
Some highlights from the Green Goal Report
Climate Change—Without the measures
enshrined in the Green Goal, greenhouse gas emissions
would have been equivalent to 114,000 tonnes of
carbon dioxide with as much as 90,000 tonnes of
this generated by transport within Germany.
The Green Goal managed to cut
electricity emissions from an estimated 7,540
tonnes to 2,490 tonnes and transport emissions
from 90,000 tonnes to 73,000 tonnes. Overall,
the emissions from the World Cup were equivalent
to 92,000 tonnes.
The Organizers in addition purchased
500,000 Euros-worth of carbon offsets in India
where 900 farmers an their families in Tamil Nadu
are getting biogas cooking fuel from cow dung
in stead of using fuel wood or fossil fuels.
Offsets also came from investments
in South Africa with financing from FIFA, Deutsche
Telecom and PlasticsEurope in a sewage gas project
in Sebokeng Township near Johannesburg and a sawdust-fuelled
fruit drying furnace in Letaba, northern South
Africa.
These offsets saved an estimated
100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide entering the
global atmosphere.
Christian Hockfeld of the Oeko
Institute said: “That means that at the end we
over-compensated the additional emissions in Germany
by 8,000 tonnes. It means that the Green Goal
actually went further than we had planned by also
compensating for the estimated 5,100 tonnes as
a result of international travel by teams and
officials”.
Waste-Campaigns like ‘Put it
in a Roll’, aimed at minimizing packaging wastes
like cardboard and paper serviettes, and the deployment
of a returnable beaker called the ‘Cup o the Cup’
played their part in cutting rubbish levels close
to the target.
The organizer’s set a target
of reducing wastes in and around stadia by 20
per cent. “Quantifiable reductions amounted to
more than 17 per cent,” says the report.
Water-the Organizer’s set a
target to reduce water consumption at grounds
by 20 per cent. This says the report was largely
achieved by measures such as water-saving toilets
and the deployment of dry urinals at some stadiums.
Rainwater harvesting systems
were also installed at grounds including Berlin,
Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
Transport—the Organizer’s set
themselves a target that 50 per cent of journeys
to and from stadia should be by public transport.
The target was surpassed with 57 per cent of journeys
occurring by public transport and with a further
six per cent travelling on foot and 11 per cent
travelling by coach.
Energy—the energy target, set
to deliver a 20 per cent reduction in energy consumption
at World Cup stadia, was not met despite measures
including heat insulation at Stuttgart and installation
of solar power amounting to 2.5 million kWh of
electricity at sites including Kaiserslautern
and Dortmund.
Thirteen million kWh of certified
green electricity from hydropower was also purchased.
In the end energy consumption reductions amounted
to just 13 per cent.
However, the report notes that
new solar power installations will leave a positive
legacy. Within the next five years they should
cover the total energy requirement of the 2006
World Cup.
Notes to Editors
The FIFA 2006 World Cup Green Goal Legacy Report
can be found today at www.unep.org
The report was launched at a meeting of the Global
Forum for Sport and the Environment taking place
at the Olympic Museum Lausanne, Switzerland. Full
details of the conference and UNEP’s sport and
environment programme can be found at www.unep.org/sport_env
UNEP became involved in the Green Goal via its
former Executive Director, Klaus Toepfer, who
was the initiative’s Green Goal Ambassador.
