‘Greening’ the 2010 FIFA World Cup: Environmental Sustainability and the Mega-Event in South Africa

Abstract

Event greening of major spectacles such as the Olympics, World Cups and large international conferences are increasingly common. The 2010 South African World Cup sought to develop a ‘Green Goal 2010’ programme that would mitigate some of the environmental impacts of the event, as well as secure a positive social, economic and environmental legacy. While the content of the Green Goal programmes varied between host cities, some innovative and significant projects were implemented, ranging from waste management and recycling, to biodiversity protection and city beautification, to public transport upgrades and energy efficiency measures at the stadiums. In the broader context of the most carbon-intensive World Cup ever, however, such mitigation efforts were relatively piecemeal. The greatest opportunity the World Cup provided was for its visibility, branding and communication potential to catalyse greater environmental awareness and a stronger commitment to ecological modernization. Due to lack of coordination and national leadership, this opportunity was largely missed. The article concludes by recommending a number of core lessons, as well as some further opportunities, that can be taken from the South African 2010 experience.

Keywords:

• FIFA World Cup
• South Africa
• Green Goal 2010
• ecological modernization
• mega-event

Acknowledgements

Support for this research was provided by the Aberystwyth University Research Fund. The time and thoughtful comments of all the interviewees is gratefully acknowledged, as is the feedback of participants at the 2010 African Studies Association UK Conference in Oxford, and the comments of two anonymous referees.

Notes

Interviewee details are listed after the bibliography. All interviewees kindly consented to be quoted and named; all errors of course remain my own.

This department was dissolved and the new Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) was created by incoming President Jacob Zuma in July 2009.

These figures show only the numbers of projects listed under the cities' Green Goal programmes, and not the amount of money spent on the projects. Thus, the amount of money spent by Johannesburg on a small number of very large projects is underemphasized here, whereas Cape Town's apparent predominance is overemphasized due to many smaller projects. The focus areas, taken from the National Greening 2010 Framework, only show primary project focus and do not show projects which covered several focus areas.

For a more detailed discussion of the protests during the 2002 WSSD, see Death (2010, Chapter 6). In the event, there were very few protests during the 2010 World Cup, and none on a scale approaching those of 2002, despite pre-tournament fears (Media Tenor, 2010).

In contrast, some of the host cities did raise the issue of carbon off-setting, most notably Durban (Durban, 2010; Mander & Roberts, 2010, pp. 6–9) and Cape Town (Cape Town, 2009, p. 17; Ozinsky, 2009, p. 32). Some donor funding was also made available to host cities and the Department of Environmental Affairs for carbon off-setting, with national programmes including a web-based carbon offset system, communication campaign and legacy report (DEA, no date, p. 34; DEAT, 2009, p. 19).

For example, Cape Town's ‘drink tap water’ campaign had to be ‘toned down’ at the Fan Fests, as Coca-Cola's production of bottle water meant that ‘we could encourage people to drink tap water, but we could not say anything about bottled water’ (Interview, Ozinsky, 2010).