SUSTAINABILITY

The how

For an event of this size, the logistics requirements were always going to be our primary focus. We knew that transport, travel, catering and accommodation all needed an approach that could deliver measurable benefits.

We reduced air-travel by 90% versus previous editions of the Games. We achieved that by challenging the norm. Major events are normally reliant on a travelling core of professionals who are considered experts in their field. However we took the decision to recruit the majority of production personnel and technicians from the UK market with 16% of the host broadcast team coming from the West Midlands.

We also challenged ourselves to look for local suppliers of goods and services with an emphasis on SMEs. These contracts included small street food caterers, a sustainable clothing manufacturer and creative agencies.

Other initiatives designed to reduce our environmental impact included developing an online portal for call sheets and manuals to reduce printing, contractual commitments from our OB Facilities providers to offset their emissions from their own operations, a strict reduce, re-use and recycle policy, a Meat Free Monday initiative and a concerted effort to ensure crews could stay as close to their venues as possible, to negate the need for transport.

The Impact

All of our commitments were captured and analysed by a Social Value Portal, an online resource for public and private sector organisations to measure, monitor and benchmark the social value they generate.