Assessing the impact of the London 2012 Olympics

Benefits

Policy Insight

The three-part assessment provided a comprehensive review of impact across multiple scales, including the six host boroughs. This allowed policymakers and other organisations involved in post-games legacy planning to understand emerging impacts as well as the overall trajectory of impact beyond the timespan of the games themselves. In addition to producing the assessments, Professor Brimicombe served as one of two special advisers to the Select Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy.

The post-Game impact report, published in 2015, was oriented around the “Legacy Promises” made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Mayor for London, and informed the IOC’s understanding of the impact of staging the games.

The report found that East London gained a hugely-improved rail transport infrastructure which yielded considerable benefits in the post-Games legacy period, along with positive impacts across a range of other indicators such as reduced poverty and social exclusion. Although it concluded that the Games likely achieved its main sustainability objectives, it identified several areas for improvement and recommendations for further legacy work, e.g. improving water quality in the Lea.

The three-stage assessment helped evaluate sustainability targets and practices across the lifespan of the games, providing valuable insight for future games in other host cities. As one example, while the pre-Games study found no negative impacts as a result of preparing for the 2012 Games, including no adverse effect on London’s air quality from the construction of Olympic venues, the post-games report estimated that construction projects had produced 60% of all greenhouse gases released over the term of the Olympic project.

Better decisions

Attention to sustainability and impact in the London 2012 games underpinned later development and work by the London Legacy Development Corporation in regeneration and public engagement.

Public and government demand for a sustainable games delivery also resulted in changing practices and norms around construction industry sustainability. Professor Brimicombe suggested that the construction of the Athletes’ Village as (the first large scale, high density high-rise scheme to be developed to the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4), potentially saved 13.8Mt of CO2 emissions. The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 suggested that a target of diverting 90% of hazardous waste from landfill “helped to inspire a step change in the construction sector”.

London 2012 also prompted the development of BSI 8901 and ISO 20121 standards for event sustainability, which have since been used by other large-scale events such as COP15.

Combining data

The project only used existing datasets compiled by local and central government agencies to synthesise an overall analysis of impact in specific geographic scales, while also replacing or removing obsolete indicators between reports.