Can Tokyo Unshackle Olympics from the Scourge of Being Termed as Polluting?

Olympics- The glorious quadrennial sporting event that transcends political, cultural, economic and religious barriers and witnesses participation of more than 25,000 athletes from more than 200 different countries. There are more than a million visitors who witness the sporting carnival and more than 3.5 million viewers glued to their screens to watch their favourite athletes strive for gold.
Source- Reuters
Staging the 16-days sporting extravaganza not only just brings about pride and massive amounts of revenues to the hosting nation, but also has long-term environmental and ecological consequences long after the crowds are gone. In 2012 London Olympic games, more than 3.45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide was released in the atmosphere, whereas in 2016 Rio Olympics 3.56 million metric tons of CO2 was generated. It is estimated that if green measures are not taken by Japan, then a total of 3.01 million metric tons of CO2 would be released due to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games.
Pollution not only affects the residential population of the host country but also the performance of the athletes. According to research conducted by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, for every 10 units above the permissible levels of PM10 by WHO, the performance of the athletes gets diminished by 0.2 per cent.
The next edition of the Olympics will be organised in Tokyo, Japan which is already crippled by CO2 emission levels and has the fifth largest per capita CO2 emissions in the world.
The Japanese Olympics committee has therefore committed to using sustainability as the working principle in all aspects of the Olympics games. The sustainability concept of the games is decided as “Be Better, together, For the planet and the people” to deliver this mega carnival in a sustainable manner in cooperation with various stakeholders. They are looking forward to achieving the certification of ISO 20121 which is the international standard for sustainability provided by the International Organisation for Standardisation with London Olympics being the only edition of the Olympics to achieve this honour.
The five main themes decided by the Tokyo Olympics committee are as shown in the infographic:
Renewable Energy
The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organising committees have aimed to fully power the Olympics through renewable energy resources, thereby harnessing their potential for solar energy and reducing carbonisation. They are planning to install solar panels in stadiums where the sporting events are set to take place, the main press centre and the international broadcasting centre. They are also embedding solar panels inside the roads with a protective layer of a special resin to provide hardness to the surface. They are ensuring that the panels that are being bought are used in the long term, thereby creating a legacy for the future.
Olympic Medals
In order to curb the meteoric rise in the amount of e-waste that is generated globally, Tokyo has come up with an efficient solution to tackle this problem. The medals that would be doled out to the winners of various events would be from recycled e-waste. The small amount of precious metals that are part of various electronic gadgets would be extracted and would be used in making more than 5000 medals. The people of Japan have already donated more than 80,000 mobile phones to the Olympics Association as their contribution to a greener Olympics.
When Fantasy meets reality
The games are touted to be the most technologically advanced yet. The deluge of the million visitors will lead to increased traffic congestion on roads and high amount of CO2 emissions by vehicles powered by fuels such as petrol and diesel, Tokyo has planned to launch autonomous cars which use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and electric buses to operate within the games village that can help the players in commuting. The athletes can unlock the vehicles through their smartphones and can translate text into local language to navigate. AI-powered Robots would also be used to carry luggage for the elderly or disabled individuals.
Material Procurement
The organizing committee has also come up with a sustainable waste management programme. All the materials that are being procured will be reused or recycled. The committee has set targets for recycling and reuse by 65 per cent, 3 percentage points higher than that of London Olympics.
Will Tokyo achieve all the sustainability objectives that it has set out to achieve? With the cost overruns already seven times as high as the initially estimated numbers, will Tokyo be able to choose sustainability over profits? We would let time be the best judge for that. We can just hope that in 2020, as the athletes all over the world don different colours, there would be one colour that the whole of Japan would be wearing that time and that colour would be green.

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