South Africa: Greener World Cup

Back in December, I attended a FIFA briefing in Johannesburg with other fellow bloggers from the US and we were given a detailed presentation about the event and its organization by Dr. Danny Jordaan, the CEO of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organizing Comittee. Today, John Gartner, one of the bloggers, published a great article about the efforts that South Africa is putting to make the 2010 FIFA World Cup greener. The focus is mostly on reducing the carbon footprint coming from mass transportation and, as far as I know, there is no super high tech solution or killer new gadget involved in this “greening” effort.

In the conclusion, John notes that in its 17 “guarantees” list that a country must meet to be selected to host the games, there is no requirements related to sustainability or the environment preservation. It would be a good idea to fund technology R&D to reduce large scale events’ carbon footprint and lobby to make the FIFA include a “green guarantee” in its list.

You can read his article on the Huffington Post