Green Games for a blue planet? Rio 2016 one year on

Sus­tain­able busi­ness con­sult­ant Ariane Janér wit­nessed first-hand how the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games affected the Brazili­an city she calls home. In this “GT” Insight, Ms Janér reflects on Rio 2016 and sum­mar­ises its poten­tial, pos­it­ives, broken prom­ises, and missed opportunities.

One year has gone by since the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, pro­moted as the “Green Games for a Blue Plan­et”. It is a good moment to look at what it has meant for the host des­tin­a­tion, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in terms of tour­ism and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. As much has already been writ­ten about the Rio Games, let´s put things into context.

How and when did Rio de Janeiro, Brazil win the Games?

Rio de Janeiro barely made the short­l­ist for host­ing the 2016 Olympic Games. With an over­all score of 6.4, it was rated 4.5 for Safety and Secur­ity and only scored 6 or more for Gov­ern­ment Sup­port, Exper­i­ence and Olympic Village.

But when Rio made the short­l­ist in 2008, the eco­nomy was boom­ing and Brazil had achieved the coveted “invest­ment grade” status from the major cred­it rat­ing com­pan­ies. Togeth­er with a good cam­paign (“Green Games for a Blue Plan­et”), and an emo­tion­al appeal to hold the Olympics in South Amer­ica for the first time, Brazil won over the del­eg­ates in 2009.

The Eco­nom­ist cel­eb­rated Brazil’s step­ping onto the world stage with the cov­er “Brazil Takes Off”.

Were the Rio Games expensive to host?

A 2016 Oxford Saïd study scru­tin­ized the dir­ect expendit­ures for the organ­iz­a­tion and sports ven­ues for 19 Olympic Games since 1960. In their ana­lys­is, Rio 2016 cost less than recent Games with around US$ 5 bil­lion (R$ 17.4 bil­lion) in dir­ect expendit­ures. This was much lower than Sochi 2014 (US$ 22 bil­lion) and Lon­don 2012 (US$ 15 bil­lion). The cost over­run for Rio was about 70%, which is quite good as Olympic Games go. Nearly half of Olympic Games have cost over­runs of more than 100% and the aver­age is 176%!

As with Bar­celona 1992, invest­ment in an urb­an redevel­op­ment leg­acy for Rio’s cit­izens was high­er than the dir­ect event-related expendit­ures. More than US$ 7 bil­lion was spent on upgrad­ing Rio de Janeir­o’s urb­an infra­struc­ture. A large part of this went to improv­ing urb­an mobil­ity through an expan­sion of the pub­lic trans­port net­work. The oth­er major invest­ment was revital­iz­ing the Rio Water­front though a Pub­lic-Private Partnership.

Was it all public investment?

No, not all of this was pub­lic invest­ment. The offi­cial data says that about 60% of the fin­an­cing of the dir­ect expendit­ures came from private enter­prise (e.g the Olympic Village).

For the infra­struc­ture leg­acy the num­bers are more dif­fi­cult to gauge, but the avail­able data indic­ate that about 40% was private investment.

Not included in the num­bers is the sig­ni­fic­ant private invest­ments made in increas­ing hotel capa­city (estim­ated at US$ 3 bil­lion) and small busi­ness investment.

Economic legacy: Mobility and urban upgrades

The main invest­ment was in trans­port mobil­ity: an exten­sion of the metro, long dis­tance rap­id bus trans­it (BRT) cor­ridors, a mod­ern tram for the cen­ter and water­front of Rio, and the eas­ing of some road traffic bot­tle­necks. This has indeed improved trans­it times and trans­port options in Rio de Janeiro, which can be veri­fied in the TomTom Traffic index.

Rio’s Water­front (Porto Mara­vilha) has under­gone a major face lift, much like Bar­celona. From an ugly place to be avoided, it has become a major attrac­tion for both vis­it­ors and loc­als, with museums, a Mar­ine Aquar­i­um (AquaR­io), a ped­es­tri­an boulevard lined with giant Kobra mur­als, and refur­bished ware­houses, where the pres­ence of food trucks and the sta­ging of events are stim­u­lated. And, of course, there is now a mag­ni­fi­cent view of the Guanabara Bay.

Rio did not splurge on icon­ic sports ven­ues like Beijing. Some of them were tem­por­ary with the view to using them as school build­ings after the Games. Oth­ers were meant to be oper­ated by private enter­prise through a concession.

How­ever, all these invest­ments are yet to give returns. Due to the fin­an­cial crisis in Rio de Janeiro, it is dif­fi­cult to find spon­sors and investors at the moment. So, for now, the main­ten­ance costs for sports ven­ues are borne by the city, which can­not afford this.

Not all sup­pli­ers to the Olympic Games have been paid. And many apart­ments in the Olympic Vil­lage, a private invest­ment, still need to be sold.

The num­ber of hotel rooms avail­able went from 29,000 to 56,000, but occu­pancy rates are now low, espe­cially for those con­struc­ted in new areas. Cur­rently hotels are strug­gling to make an oper­a­tion­al profit.

The num­ber of rooms offered through AirB­nB and sim­il­ar sites soared. This included rooms in favelas (Por­tuguese for “slum”; inform­al urb­an area).

Environmental legacy: Greenwashing galore

Rio 2016’s sus­tain­ab­il­ity pro­gram received ISO 20121 (Event sus­tain­ab­il­ity man­age­ment sys­tems — Require­ments with guid­ance for use) cer­ti­fic­a­tion, after a third-party audit. These and oth­er achieve­ments are proudly paraded on the offi­cial Olympics website.

The Games’ open­ing cere­mony echoed the vis­ion of “Green Games for a Blue Plan­et”. The threat of cli­mate change was high­lighted by show­ing the effects of rising sea levels, the Olympic rings were shown in a form­a­tion of trees, and every ath­lete was invited to plant a tree to off­set the car­bon foot­print of the games.

But, in real­ity, many green prom­ises made for the first Olympic Games in South Amer­ica and in the trop­ics were not delivered.

Most prom­in­ent in the media was the prom­ise to clean up Guanabara Bay; reduce its pol­lu­tion levels by 80%. This was an impossible task from the out­set, as this meant coordin­at­ing with all the muni­cip­al­it­ies who were leak­ing sewage and sol­id waste into the rivers that flowed into the bay. And there was no money to invest. Some pal­li­at­ive meas­ures were taken.

Rio de Janeiro’s main open land­fill (Gramacho) which leached into the bay was closed and replaced by a slightly less impact­ing one (Sero­pedica) in 2012. More efforts were made to recycle muni­cip­al waste, but the rates are still very low. The Games’ main focus was on waste reduction.

One con­tro­ver­sial decision was allow­ing a new Olympic Golf Course to be con­struc­ted in an envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion area instead of using an exist­ing golf course. This decision favored a private real estate invest­ment and the golf course was mar­keted as an envir­on­ment­al improvement.

Car­bon emis­sions for the Rio Olympic Games were cal­cu­lated at 3.6 mil­lion met­ric tons. Dow Chem­ic­al pledged to off­set 2 mil­lion met­ric tons through GHG reduc­tion. Bet­ter trans­port mobil­ity and the sus­tain­able design of ven­ues would trans­late into lower emis­sions. The remainder would be off­set by tree plant­ing pro­jects dir­ec­ted at restor­ing Atlantic Rain­forest. Until now only 5 mil­lion of the 24 mil­lion seed­lings have been planted and the refor­est­a­tion com­pan­ies are com­plain­ing about not receiv­ing their money.

Was there a social legacy?

Though the Games were presen­ted as inclus­ive, they failed to deliv­er for the poorer citizens.

More than 4,000 fam­il­ies were relo­cated for reas­ons related to the Olympic Pro­ject, like sports ven­ues and bus and high­way trajectories.

The Favela Paci­fic­a­tion Pro­gram which star­ted in 2008 meant that those liv­ing in favelas saw a reduc­tion in viol­ence due to bet­ter poli­cing. In gen­er­al crime rates in Rio de Janeiro went down. But the prom­ises to fol­low this up by sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment in san­it­a­tion, health and edu­ca­tion were not kept. And now, with a fin­an­cial crisis, there is not even enough money to pay for poli­cing. Crime and viol­ence in Rio de Janeiro are sharply up since the Olympics.

Lots of tem­por­ary jobs in con­struc­tion were cre­ated in the run-up to the Games. How­ever the fin­an­cial crisis means that unem­ploy­ment is sharply up again, also fuel­ing crime.

The Deodoro Olympic Cen­ter was planned to be one of the legacies for a poorer part of the city. It would become a pub­lic park where rad­ic­al sports could be prac­ticed with a capa­city to receive 6,000 vis­it­ors. For now the site is aban­doned. Even the “forest of the ath­letes” still needs to be planted there.

Brazili­an ath­letes had hoped that the Rio Games would leave a leg­acy for sports in gen­er­al, through invest­ment in train­ing and sports facil­it­ies and more spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. This has not materialized.

Did the Games boost tourism to Brazil?

No. This comes as no sur­prise, as there are plenty of stud­ies that show that Olympic Games and oth­er mega events do not boost tour­ism. The sur­prise is that organ­izers still use the argument.

In 2007, Brazil received 5 mil­lion inter­na­tion­al vis­its, of which 38% were from region­al (South Amer­ica) and 62% were long haul. In 2016, Brazil received 6.6 mil­lion inter­na­tion­al vis­its, of which 57% were region­al and 43% were long haul. The annu­al growth rate for Brazil dur­ing that peri­od was lower than the glob­al rate. The num­ber for 2016 is also well below pre-Games pro­jec­tion of 8.9 mil­lion for­eign vis­its for that period.

This is bad news for the investors in the hotel industry in Rio de Janeiro. Room capa­city is double that of 2007 and many hotels are now mak­ing oper­a­tion­al losses.

Did the Games boost Brazil´s image as a sustainable destination?

Brazil star­ted out with a pos­it­ive image. But with eyes of the world on Rio de Janeiro, this star­ted to unravel. Street protests, the impeach­ment of a pres­id­ent, major and ongo­ing rev­el­a­tions about cor­rup­tion (includ­ing related to the Olympics), a grow­ing fin­an­cial crisis, the Zika vir­us, and the pol­lu­tion in Guanabara Bay became major world news stories.

The Games them­selves were a suc­cess, though. The trans­port mobil­ity sys­tem with rap­id trans­it buses and metro whizzed spec­tat­ors to the ven­ues. Help­ful volun­teers assisted the vis­it­ors, and the army was out in the streets to deter crime and ter­ror­ism. The sport was spec­tac­u­lar and the atmo­sphere in Rio de Janeiro was festive.

But no soon­er had the last vis­it­ors left the mood turned sombre. Brazili­ans and cari­ocas (cit­izens of Rio) had to con­tin­ue on amid a deep­en­ing fin­an­cial and polit­ic­al crisis. Some key people involved in host­ing the Olympic Games are now in jail, indicted or under sus­pi­cion of cor­rupt prac­tices. Reports of aban­doned ven­ues and unful­filled prom­ises dom­in­ated pos­it­ive art­icles in the media.

The efforts of UNEP to high­light sus­tain­able tour­ism ini­ti­at­ives in Rio and else­where in Brazil failed to get much atten­tion or support.

In the ana­lys­is of the World Eco­nom­ic For­um, Brazil’s Travel and Tour­ism Com­pet­it­ive­ness Score went from 4.3 out of 7 (#59 out of 124 coun­tries) in 2007 to 4.5 out of 7 (#27 out of 136 coun­tries) in 2016. But this is not the pro­gress it seems to be. Brazil´s score is based on its poten­tial: nat­ur­al resources (#1) and cul­tur­al resources (#8). Its score rose mainly because of two things: price com­pet­it­ive­ness (its cur­rency lost value) and tour­ism ser­vice infra­struc­ture. How­ever WEF ranked it #117 in “sus­tain­ab­il­ity of travel and tour­ism development”.

So was the Games worth the effort?

It is still too early to say what the last­ing legacies of the Rio Games will be. Only the Los Angeles Games in 1984 made an imme­di­ate profit. Host­ing the Olympic Games in Rio did mobil­ize people and res­ul­ted in improve­ments for the city. It was also not the cause of Brazil’s fin­an­cial crisis; merely anoth­er van­ity pro­ject tain­ted by over­spend­ing and corruption.

But, sadly, the Rio Games high­lighted that sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment is still not taken ser­i­ously by those in charge of mega-events. Envir­on­ment­al and social plan­ning are seen as small appen­dices to con­ven­tion­al eco­nom­ic interests, not as import­ant drivers of innov­a­tion, integ­ra­tion and inclusion.

Bar­celona, the city that Rio de Janeiro tried to emu­late, also inves­ted big in infra­struc­ture. It also went heav­ily over-budget (266% over accord­ing to the Oxford Saïd study). But Bar­celona did clean up its rivers and did a bet­ter job of integ­rat­ing the city. Today it is one of the most pop­u­lar city des­tin­a­tions in the world, receiv­ing more for­eign overnight vis­it­ors than all of Brazil. (Iron­ic­ally, it is now strug­gling with “over­tour­ism”.)

Mean­while, the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee has learned an import­ant les­son. The buildup and after­math of Rio de Janeiro and the with­draw­al of cit­ies like Boston, Rome, Bud­apest and Ham­burg for the 2024 Games demon­strated the need for a less expens­ive bid­ding pro­cess and organ­iz­a­tion of the Games.

Par­is and Los Angeles, the only inter­ested bid­ders left, will now host the 2024 and 2028 Games respect­ively. They seem to be well posi­tioned to make effi­cient use of exist­ing and tem­por­ary resources to deliv­er less costly mega-events. And maybe they will dis­cov­er a way to make the Games truly sustainable.

Fea­tured image (top of post): From the open­ing cere­mony of the 2016 Olympic Games in Maracanã Sta­di­um, Rio de Janeiro. By Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil (CC BY 3.0 br) via Wiki­me­dia.

About the author

Ariane Janér is a Dutch zoolo­gist with an MBA who has been work­ing in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and tour­ism in Brazil since 1991. She is act­ive both as a con­sult­ant and through NGOs and has worked on vari­ous types of pro­jects: From com­munity-based tour­ism to sus­tain­able pro­cure­ment for private enter­prise; from design­ing tours to writ­ing busi­ness plans. Ariane is also a founder of the Glob­al Eco­tour­ism Net­work. Ariane Janér on Linked­In .