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An evaluation of the sustainability of the Olympic Games

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 340–348 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Olympic Games claim to be exemplars of sustainability, aiming to inspire sustainable futures around the world. Yet no systematic evaluation of their sustainability exists. We develop and apply a model with nine indicators to evaluate the sustainability of the 16 editions of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games between 1992 and 2020, representing a total cost of more than US$70 billion. Our model shows that the overall sustainability of the Olympic Games is medium and that it has declined over time. Salt Lake City 2002 was the most sustainable Olympic Games in this period, whereas Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 were the least sustainable. No Olympics, however, score in the top category of our model. Three actions should make Olympic hosting more sustainable: first, greatly reducing the size of the event; second, rotating the Olympics among the same cities; third, enforcing independent sustainability standards.

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Fig. 1: Definition and conceptual model of sustainability in the Olympic Games.
Fig. 2: Overall sustainability of the Olympic Games 1992–2020 by indicator.
Fig. 3: Trend lines and important milestones of sustainability in the Olympic Games, 1992–2020.
Fig. 4: Sustainability of Summer and Winter Olympic Games compared, 1992–2020.
Fig. 5: Sustainability of individual Olympic Games compared, 1992–2020.

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Data availability

The dataset and statistical analysis are available in the mega-event dataverse on Harvard dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZARR6A.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all who collaborated with us on the data collection. We are grateful to F. Bavaud, J. Grieshaber, J.-W. Lee, C. Guala and K. Peter for contributing to this paper in their own ways. The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) funded the research of this paper under the grant Mega-events: growth and impacts, grant number PP00P1_172891.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Martin Müller, Sven Daniel Wolfe, David Gogishvili & Annick Leick

  2. Tisch Center for Hospitality, New York University, New York City, NY, USA

    Christopher Gaffney

  3. Department of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Miriam Hug

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  1. Martin Müller
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Contributions

M.M. designed the research, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. M.M., S.D.W., C.G., M.H. and A.L. developed the database. M.M., S.D.W., D.G., M.H. and A.L. collected and assembled the data.

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Correspondence to Martin Müller.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Meg Holden, John Short and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

Indicators for conceptual model of sustainability of the Olympic Games.

Supplementary Table 2

Bivariate correlations among indicators.

Supplementary Data

Output of statistical tests performed.

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Müller, M., Wolfe, S.D., Gaffney, C. et al. An evaluation of the sustainability of the Olympic Games. Nat Sustain 4, 340–348 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00696-5

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