If the Olympics can go carbon-neutral, so can you

The Olympian task: For the first time in history, make the Olympics carbon-neutral.
When the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) asked Professor James Tansey to develop a plan for measuring and offsetting the 2010 Winter Games’ carbon emissions, he embraced the challenge. Through his spinoff company, Offsetters Clean Technology Inc., Dr. Tansey and his team of MBA students at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business achieved success – a 15 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, according to an estimate by the David Suzuki Foundation.

First, VANOC needed help to understand the Games’ carbon footprint, explains Dr. Tansey, who is the executive director of Sauder’s Centre for Sustainability and Social Innovation. It wanted an audit, or inventory, of the CO2 emissions from the Games, not only from the direct operations but also from all the spectators and athletes who would travel to Vancouver. It also wanted a portfolio of projects that would eventually make the Games carbon-neutral – to cover 100 per cent of the direct emissions by investing in clean technology projects and fuel switching projects.

“The best path to carbon neutrality is by investing in the next generation of technologies,” says Dr. Tansey. “We have a portfolio of projects now that over the next two years will offset those emissions.” But carbon offsetting is a complex subject. “If you try to explain all of that complexity to most clients, and it’s very new, you lose them,” Dr. Tansey says. “So our strategy in this area, and in every area, is make sure you capture 100 per cent of the emissions, but make the program as simple and accessible as possible.”

One simple Olympic program was used to engage spectators, who could buy Olympic pins that had a ton of carbon attached, which was roughly an individual’s emissions to attend the Games. The cost was $25.

“When you’re trying to sell each person individually, it’s very difficult, so we were much less successful there,” says Dr. Tansey. “Really the only solution in that space is to build the cost of the carbon offsets into the ticket price and make it mandatory.”

Dr. Tansey believes that the most important lessons learned from the Winter Games and from his current engagement with the Sochi Games, which will run in Russia in 2014, is that the Olympics are a unique spotlight. “No other event in history attracts so many people – up to three billion spectators – so we recognize that each time the Games are run, the bar is raised for their environmental performance,” he says.

The project holds a lot of lessons for business. Companies can build brand equity by taking a leading position on climate change, he said.

“There are consumers out there who care about climate change, who want to see companies take the lead,” says Dr. Tansey. “We know that 70 per cent of Canadians think that climate change is real, so step up, do the right thing and recognize that it will be a differentiator for your brand and you’ll be prepared for when a compliance market does emerge.”

His advice to companies that want to create brand equity in this space is to think about products you can build a story around. One example is a life cycle assessment that his team did on a cup of coffee, from where the beans are grown in Nicaragua to someone’s coffee cup in Vancouver.
“The biggest surprise we found was that 70 per cent of the emissions came from what the consumer does to grind the beans, boil the water and dispose of the waste,” says Dr. Tansey. Only 30 per cent of the emissions were associated with growing the beans in the first place, fertilizer and transporting.”

He sees all kinds of interesting carbon stories behind products and is working with a number of companies now to profile such things as kiwi fruit, ham production and polo shirts produced in Peru.

“You really have to think about the product that’s going to tell your story best to your consumer,” says Dr. Tansey. “If you can’t have fun with it, if you don’t make it a brand association, then we’ll have to leave it to the regulators to set the rules and that’s much less fun.”

Carbon offsetting an Olympic-sized challenge
November 19, 2010 -  The Globe and Mail

THE CHALLENGE

The organizing committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games made headlines when it committed to reduce emissions and, for the first time in history, run a carbon-neutral Olympic Games.

The organizing committee reduced emissions from the Games by as much as 15 per cent by making investments into energy-efficient buildings, green transportation infrastructure and innovative technologies such as the heat recovery system at the Athletes Village.

THE BACKGROUND

To take on this challenge, the organizing committee drew on the expertise of a Vancouver-based carbon offsetting company, Offsetters Clean Technology. Recognizing that the Games would attract more than two billion spectators, Offsetters worked with a number of other clean technology companies to develop a strategy to guide and facilitate the organizing committee’s carbon-neural plan, while also using the Games as a platform to raise awareness about promising new clean technologies.

THE RESULT
Offsetters and its partner companies implemented a series of new projects that made measurable reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions to offset the 118,000 tonnes of emissions created by the Games. Any remaining emissions were counterbalanced by Offsetters through the purchase of high-quality offsets from existing greenhouse-gas-reducing projects. By getting involved, Offsetters and the other clean technology companies were able to gain significant media exposure for their projects before, during and after the Games.

In addition, Offsetters created a campaign that asked spectators, official sponsors and suppliers to take responsibility for offsetting their own travel and other emissions. The company worked directly with sponsors and suppliers to quantify and offset their emissions through a Carbon Partners Program.

To reach spectators, carbon calculators were embedded in Olympic websites, and the offsetting company worked with Rethink Communications to create a social-media campaign to draw attention to the impacts of climate change. Focused on Bobwheeling, an ironic demonstration sport proposed for a future with warmer winters, the overall media campaign generated around 30 million media impressions and it was covered by press from around the world, including Korea, Japan and Belarus.

The Carbon Partners Program engaged more than 50 per cent of the companies involved in the Games and offset up to 75 per cent of their total emissions. However, it proved much more difficult to convince spectators travelling to Vancouver to offset their emissions through the social-media program. While awareness was high, direct action to purchase offsets was limited.
The lesson from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics to be learned by future host cities is that, while it is feasible to influence companies and other organizations involved in the event to tackle their emissions for brand-enhancing reasons, the best way to tackle spectator emissions is to build the cost of carbon into ticket prices.

Special to The Globe and Mail
Sauder School of Business associate professor James Tansey is the executive director of the Sauder research centre ISIS (Incubator for Social Innovation and Sustainability). He is president of Offsetters Clean Technology and he is one of four international advisers working with the United Nations Environment Program on the environmental strategy for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.