Olympic Values
When I think about what the modern day Olympic Games stand for and promote, the first thing that comes to mind is a worldwide celebration of sporting excellence and a coming together of communities and countries from around the globe.
Sporting events such as the Olympics have a very unique and special place on the world stage, as it is a time when people forget their differences for a few short weeks and focus all their energy into a single united event. This is a time when the entire world’s media attention is pinpointed on one place, and in 2012 that attention was directed at the UK.
Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement saw in the Games an ideal opportunity to develop a set of universal principles – or Values – that could be applied to education and to society as a whole, as well as to sport itself.
These Values, as they appear on the London2012 website are:
- respect – fair play; knowing one’s own limits; and taking care of one’s health and the environment
- excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives
- friendship – how, through sport, to understand each other despite any differences
Environmentally Friendly and Ethically Aware
As far as sporting events are concerned, the event has been hugely successful, but sadly the organisation, funding, and ethical issues which have been raised leave us with one hell of a nasty taste in our mouths.
The London 2012 organising committee announced to the world that they were going to be putting on an environmentally friendly and ethically aware event, in spite of this, it seems as if pound signs were flashing in front of their eyes when they decided which partners and sponsors to sign up with.
You might have thought that with the whole world looking and younger generations watching the event with impressionable eyes that they would have been very selective in who they chose to partner with; however, looking down the list of sponsors, it appears that both environment and ethics quickly fell to the wayside.
The Best of the Bunch?
When we dig a little deeper into who exactly the Olympic sponsors are, what we discover is quite simply disgusting. A number of companies have been highlighted by the Greenwash Gold 2012 Blog, which held a vote for readers to decide upon the worst offending sponsors. Rio Tinto ended up with the gold medal for their participation in the games, which is rather ironic as they were actually the providers of the Olympic medals!
Above: The Greenwash Gold Award Ceremony in Trafalgar Square
Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto are a huge British based company who have worldwide operations in different mining and extraction processes and their company image is certainly not one to be proud of!
The local people in the surrounding areas of many of the mines and quarries have been battling against Rio Tinto for a number of years due to the large scale pollution problems they have afflicted. One example of this is their mine in Utah, which is said to be responsible for over 30% of the air pollution in the area. Incidentally the air quality is so poor that over 1,000 people die each year as a result of this pollution.
The Utah facility is one of the locations that the metal for the Olympic medals actually came from, which just goes to show how much the Olympic Committee care about their green credentials! There are numerous other cases from all over the world, where Rio Tinto have shown less regard for the health of the local people and environment than they have for their profits.
BP
Another company which was in the running for the Greenwash Gold award was the huge oil company BP. Now surely it would not have taken much detective work to find out that BP are actually one of the most environmentally destructive companies on Earth, yet this point obviously seemed irrelevant to the members of the Organising committee who were cashing in on the sponsorship deal.
What sort of exampling are we setting for the rest of the world when companies such as these are being advertised at a supposedly ‘environmentally aware’ event? BP are involved in the extraction of limited natural resources from the Earth and they make billions of pounds each year from the destruction and pollution of our planet; yet they are plastered all over billboards, products, venues, and media programs, being praised as positive Olympic partners.
They even went as far as to shut down their solar power department recently as it was deemed to be unprofitable. What sort of ethical and environmental message is that sending out? Amazingly, to top it all off, BP were actually given the Sustainability Partner award by the organisers of the games!
DOW Chemical Company
The third company that were being considered for the gold medal for the Greenwash Gold Award were the DOW Chemical Company. Dow has one of the worst customer relations and environmental track records of any company out there, and it seems almost unbelievable that the Olympic Games would want to associate themselves with business like this.
From chemical spillages to air and water pollution, to merging with even more controversial companies than themselves, it seems difficult to see any reason why the games would want to be involved with them……..except for a big pay cheque!
Morality Vs Money
It seems as if money reigns supreme in almost all aspects of society and that even an event which is supposed to be a showcase of sporting talent, ends up being another billboard opportunity for the destructive mega companies of the world.
With huge amounts of people from all over the globe watching, it could have been a great opportunity for the organising committee to highlight some positive, environmentally sound and ethically conscious businesses. They claimed to be striving towards these values, yet when you look down the long list of questionable sponsors it seems as if morality and positive image took a backseat to the large wallets of the multinational giants.
