Out-of-control Olympics: why the IOC is unable to ensure an environmentally sustainable Olympic Games

ABSTRACT

Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the body responsible for overseeing the organisation of the Olympic Games, has placed a high premium on environmental sustainability for more than two decades, recent editions of the Olympic Games have fallen short of their sustainability goals, or have caused outright environmental harm. By applying a new (principal-agent) perspective and conceptualising the environmental harm caused by the Olympic Games as an agency cost, this article demonstrates that the mechanisms the IOC deploys to control Games organisers are ineffective because they fail to alter the incentives of Games organisers towards compliance with environmental sustainability objectives and that recently proposed changes through the IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms fail to address this issue. In order to lower agency costs, the IOC must increase its control by involving qualified and independent third parties in its host selection process, provide for a clear mandate in the Host City Contract, and introduce credible sanctions that impose a significant cost on hosts for failing to adhere to environmental objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Agenda 2020
• Olympic Games
• principal-agent
• sport mega-events
• sustainable Olympic Games

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Edith Drieskens for providing excellent comments and Hans Bruyninckx and Ellen Hey for sharing their inspiring thoughts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Arnout Geeraert is a Post-Doctoral fellow at KU Leuven, Leuven International and European Studies (LINES). His recent work explores the role of the European Union in international sports governance through different theoretical lenses and looks into elements of good governance in sport organisations in general. He is the author of The EU in international sports governance. A principal-agent perspective on EU control of FIFA and UEFA (Palgrave, 2016).

Ryan Gauthier is an Assistant Professor of law at Thompson Rivers University, Faculty of Law. He received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Carleton University, his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and his PhD in law from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Ryan is the author of The International Olympic Committee, law, and accountability (Routledge, 2016). Ryan is also a member of the New York Bar.

Notes

1. The IOC can be conceptualised as a complex principal since it is composed of more than one actor. Doing so is less relevant for the present purposes. In fact, one of the main benefits of the PA model is that it simplifies the internal workings of the principal and the agent (Pollack, 2003).

2. Note that, to some extent, these actors’ interests may diverge and that they may have unequal access to information. However, we assume these elements to be aggregated and focus on the agents’ overarching interests and access to information (cf. Humphreys & Van Egteren, 2012, p. 25).

3. The PA model mostly relies on the theoretical assumptions of rational choice theory, which proffers that actors behave instrumentally according to a cost–benefit analysis so as to maximise the attainment of their (fixed) interests. Our analysis is thus based on these assumptions and it demonstrates their validity.

4. The HCCs of the 1992–2008 Olympic Games remain under embargo by the IOC (see below).

5. It must be noted that adverse selection not only occurs because of information symmetries, but because the IOC Session does not appear to put a high premium on environmental sustainability in comparison to other considerations. This issue is beyond the scope of this article, which treats the IOC as a unitary actor with fixed preferences.

6. Though treated as a unitary actor here, the IOC could also be conceptualised a complex principal since it is composed of more than one actor (see above, Note 1).

7. Thus, we define effectiveness as the extent to which Games organisers deliberately comply with the IOC’s wishes regarding environmental sustainability.

8. Since we do not have access to the HCC applicable for the 2008 Olympics, we cannot confirm if the requirement applied then.

9. As of the 2022 Games, this requirement is more explicitly incorporated in the HCC (IOC, 2014b, art. 21).