OPINION
Building sustainable sports events
ES Global owner Jeff Burke outlines his vision for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and how by making it as sustainable and memorable as possible , it will help shape the brand identity of the city
Next year , Glasgow ’ s Commonwealth Games will be “ based on a significantly reduced budget , timeline and scale of event ”. The Scottish city takes the baton from Victoria , Australia - an entire state dubbed to spread the risks and the spoils ; but which ultimately scratched itself in August 2023 due to spiralling costs . As a result , only ten of the 22 official Commonwealth sports will take place across four sites . No road events , like cycling , will occur ; athletes will reside in buildings across the city , rather than a purpose-built village .
Has a new , more sedate , era of global sporting events arrived ? The unprecedented move from the state of Victoria last year was an interesting turning point , and arguably an inevitability . For two decades , host
ES Global created the Olympic climbing wall cities have increasingly contended with spiralling budgets , environmental scrutiny , and demand for a far deeper engagement with - rather than displacement of - local communities .
The foregrounding of these very legitimate concerns have arguably undermined the very essence of the soft power and cultural cache host cities hope to obtain , justifying such a costly endeavour . In an era of polycrises , now is the time to reimagine what sporting events can do for cities and their residents , but also the world at large . It involves redrawing our very conception
“ NOW IS THE TIME TO REIMAGINE WHAT SPORTING EVENTS CAN DO FOR CITIES .”
of these events and how we deliver them .
Venue delivery contractors have a pivotal part to play . This summer , ES Global had a major hand in progressing the future of environmentally sustainable sports infrastructure at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris . Across 57 sites , we deployed our self-designed truss systems , a series of standardised components that can be assembled into a variety of structures – from a climbing wall to temporary shooting venues in London , Glasgow and Tokyo . Even better , is that these structures can be demounted and relocated in a different configuration elsewhere , so they are always designed with future life and reuse in mind .
This made Paris ’ Games some of the
Jeff Burke
most sustainable ever – lowering carbon emissions , cutting waste , reducing costs and still delivering show-stopping Olympian achievements without the burden of a fixed central stadium . Putting that central reuse principle into action , our team is currently repurposing 90- 95 % of the materials at future projects , including at the World EXPO 2025 in Osaka next year .
Such an approach may sound simple , but it requires careful design , planning and collaboration . But it ’ s all replicable , and Paris has proved that it can work .
The future of stadium design is shifting away from big monoliths and towards reusing existing infrastructure , temporary overlay and demountable structures . Capitalising on the latest sustainable innovations , team cooperation and lessons learned from this summer will help Glasgow pave its own way . With little over 250 days to go to the Commonwealth Games , they ’ ll need to spring from the blocks early .
We can only hope that Glasgow becomes another proof point that largescale entertainment can be delivered sustainably . These could then open opportunities for a wider selection of regions to make financially viable bids for Games and capitalise on the investment and renewal we know they can deliver for cities and their communities .
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