The Olympic greenwash
By Jim Green
SYDNEY — Greenpeace's recent campaign against the use of ozone-depleting chemicals at Homebush Bay, the site of the Sydney Olympics, highlights what a sham the "green games" label is.
The latest row concerns the use of chemicals such as HFCF-123 for airconditioning in a number of buildings at the Olympic site, including the 15,000-seat SuperDome. The "environmental guidelines" for the Olympics state that ozone-depleting chemicals should not be used.
In December, Greenpeace sought an injunction from the Federal Court, contending that the Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA) made misleading representations regarding compliance with the environmental guidelines and the use of ozone-depleting substances.
Chemicals such as HFCF-123 are due to be phased out under the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion. Greenpeace says there are safe alternatives.
The NSW government's bid for the games stated: "Our visionary environmental plan for the Olympics will become a model for the ecologically sustainable city for the 21st century. Sydney is pioneering the environment of the future."
According to Tom McLoughlin from Friends of the Earth, at least two peak NSW environment groups — the NSW Nature Conservation Council and the Total Environment Centre — were falsely named in the bid documents as endorsees in order to authenticate the "green games" tag.
One of the first Olympic projects — the clearing of an access road to the site — involved the destruction of 30 large trees, including six Moreton Bay figs which were over 100 years old.
'Silent' watchdogs
The "green games" rhetoric came under serious attack in 1993 with the publication of research by Sharon Beder, an academic at Wollongong University. Beder was particularly critical of the failure to treat or remove hazardous waste from the Olympics site. Instead, the waste has simply been concentrated in particular areas and covered over.
"In normal circumstances it is unlikely that an unlined hazardous waste landfill site would be approved on this site because of the risks of groundwater contamination and unexpected leachate movements", Beder wrote.
Beder laid part of the blame on Greenpeace and other environmental groups: "The environmental watchdogs have been strangely silent on this one. This can be largely explained by the close involvement of Greenpeace Australia and other key environmentalists with the Olympic Games and their focus on the development of Olympic facilities as a showcase for environmentally friendly technologies. It was convenient for them, as it was for the government, to ignore the real environmental problems with the site."
Over the years, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have become more critical. In November 1996, Green Games Watch 2000, the government-funded group whose members represent the peak environment groups, claimed that environmental management was seriously flawed, there was inadequate consultation and the OCA had ridden roughshod over the environmental guidelines.
One focus of discontent has been a two-hectare toxic wasteland, less than one kilometre from the Homebush Bay Olympics site. It had been a chemical site for 50 years when Ford bought it in 1972 and contracted a company to fill the pit. Residents claim that fumes from the site cause ill health.
Ford claimed that scientific tests did not reveal dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, but refused to release the results. Derek Jenkyn, a chemist employed at the site from 1955 to 1972, issued a sworn statement saying that up to 25 toxic and carcinogenic chemicals were used at the site, including Agent Orange, formaldehyde, phenols and amines.
In March 1997, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the OCA wrongly claimed that the deadliest form of dioxin, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, had never been detected at Homebush Bay.
Polluted bay
According to Sharon Beder, scientists commissioned to study aquatic sediments and fauna in Homebush Bay in 1991 found that there were high concentrations of a number of organochlorine compounds (including dioxins), mainly as a result of past activities of the Union Carbide facilities across the bay from the Olympic site.
The OCA released a report arising from a two-year fish study in 1997. The published version omitted a section titled "Observations of Physical Abnormalities and Lesions in Fish". The deletion came to light only after the environmental group Oceanwatch lodged a freedom of information application.
According to Greenpeace campaigner Dr Darryl Luscombe, "Homebush Bay is one of the five most polluted waterways in the world and the second highest for pollution by phthalates ... Homebush Bay is the only place in Australia where it is illegal to fish because it is so polluted."
In June 1997, Greenpeace took action to store 69 barrels of highly toxic waste which it claimed were illegally and unsafely stockpiled next to the Olympics site. The NSW government then committed $21 million to cleaning up the sediments in Homebush Bay. However, one year later, Greenpeace revisited the site and nothing had changed. The drums were as Greenpeace had stored them, and the bay was no closer to being cleaned up.
In October 1998, Greenpeace exposed and removed toxic waste produced by chemical giant Orica (formerly ICI Australia). The action was prompted by reports of the imminent sale of the site for residential development, with no public commitment from the company to clean up the massive pollution. Greenpeace said its sampling revealed levels of pollution next to the Orica factory which exceeded US guidelines by up to 14,000 times safe levels.
Report card
In September 1998, Greenpeace released its "Olympics report card", giving the Olympic Games a "mixed result" overall. There is little to applaud in the detail of the report. Perhaps the most significant initiative is the use of solar power.
Some other initiatives include low-flush toilets, some effort to minimise the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), some effort to encourage the use of public transport and bicycles rather than cars, leaving the Newington Woodlands forest intact and the use of plantation and recycled timber.
Sharon Beder's 1993 report card, characterising the Olympics as a "greenwash", was arguably closer to the mark: "The claim that the 2000 Olympics will be green should be seen in the same light as other green marketing claims: as a superficial attempt to sell a product rather than a genuine attempt at change ... The world is likely to discover that Australia's claims of running a green 2000 Olympics are built on short-cut, low-cost remediation measures that are anything but green."
The NSW government and Olympic bodies such as SOCOG and the OCA are more concerned with deadlines and budgets than with environmental sustainability. In 1996 the head of the OCA, David Richmond, said, "I don't know what a green games means".
Nor have NSW governments, Liberal or Labor, shown the slightest indication that environmental initiatives associated with the Olympics will be reflected in broader government policy. The record of governments in NSW on environmental issues — for example, the decision to open up vast areas for unsustainable logging, the ongoing program of freeway construction and the silence on the federal government's plan to build a new nuclear reactor in suburban Sydney — suggests that the environmental awareness of mainstream NSW politicians is strictly limited.
Business as usual
Business has no intention of adopting new technologies arising from the Olympics — unless, of course, there is a profit to be made. In December 1996, 12 major business groups — including the Business Council of Australia, the NSW Employers Federation, the state Chamber of Commerce and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry — wrote to Premier Bob Carr asking for assurances that the environmental guidelines for Olympic construction would not carry over into other government projects.
The business groups were particularly critical of guidelines limiting the use of PVC. The environmental guidelines for the Olympics say that PVC should be minimised and avoided altogether if possible. However, PVC has been used for construction at the Olympics site, and Greenpeace's efforts to get Olympic sponsors such as Telstra and Westpac to find alternatives to PVC have been largely unsuccessful.
Similarly, Greenpeace has been unable to persuade McDonald's, an Olympic sponsor, to switch to disposable rather than reusable packaging and cutlery.
The whole premise of the "green Olympics" is that environmentally friendly technologies will be showcased and will then be taken up more broadly by governments and industry.
This premise is seriously flawed. It is based on providing technical fixes to the essentially political problem of environmental destruction.
Capitalists will always destroy the environment to maximise short-term profits, and capitalist governments will almost always acquiesce, given that the major parties are dependent on corporate funding.
Some capitalists will profit from cleaning up the mess of other capitalists. Others will find niche markets, selling such commodities as eco-friendly consumer items or eco-tourism. But the main game is fierce competition between capitalists to generate maximum profits by minimising costs, and environmental destruction is an inevitable consequence of this.
In terms of the longer term impact of the "green games" on the environment, the question is whether the Olympics will alter the balance of class forces.
Unfortunately, the Olympics have tilted the balance of class struggle even further in favour of the capitalist class and its political sycophants, through the reallocation of hundreds of millions of dollars from social services to pay for the games.