The London Olympic Games Will Not Reach Renewable Energy Targets

Anyone that has been keeping up with the London Olympic Games may have already heard that the games were on track to meet their sustainable goals. On that same note, however, reports have shown that the games will fall very short of reaching their renewable energy targets.

Reports from the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 said that carbon emissions from the games are likely to be reduced by 50 percent. This was a big step in the right direction. However, what was not good news is that only about 9 percent of the energy used at the games would be coming from renewable energy. This is much smaller than the 20 percent that the London games were hoping to get from renewable energy.

The Olympic Delivery Authority came forward and admitted that they have to come up with new ways to reduce the event’s carbon footprint. Just because it’s the Olympic games does not give it the right to just forget about everything that people have been doing to try and lower carbon emissions.

However, it was also some new safety rules put in place by the Olympic Delivery Authority that led to an abandoning of plans to use wind turbines at the Olympic park in east London. This, of course, cut into the games’ renewable energy target.

In fact, the chairman of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, Shaun McCarthy, said that the scrapping of the wind turbines is the main reason why the games would fail to make its renewable energy targets. He went on to say that it is regrettable that the renewable energy industry could not come up with the answer that the Olympic games needed.