Sydney's Olympic Games was economically sustainable event as well, because it gave a chance for local Australian companies to show that their products and services are good quality, which helped them to compete for projects overseas. The Australian firm Multiplex even built the new Wembley Stadium in London, which might not have happened if not Sydney's Olympics. Another reason why Olympics 2000 was an economically sustainable event is because huge amounts of money were spent on infrastructure, new buildings, recycling and other things therefore businesses could benefit from that by offering their services and products.
Although the environmental and economical sustainability was achieved quite well, it seems that organizers of Sydney's Olympics forgot about simple citizens of Sydney. For example, local residents were exposed to toxic dust from the Olympics clean up, which shows that the government didn't really care about the local residents. Or another good example that Sydney's Olympics was not socially sustainable is that the cost of the Games diverted government funding from health, education and transport, which affected the quality of health and social care, roads, and left students with worse education. I think this is why some people say that Sydney's Olympics provided economic and environmental benefits, but at a social cost.
London Olympics 2012 is another good example of how sport can help regeneration. The area where London Olympics will be is Newham. Newham is located in the east of London and is one of the worst boroughs of London at the moment. It has high unemployment and available jobs are only low-paid; access to education and training is poor; people are very dependable, because most of the citizens are very young and uneducated; income is the second poorest in London. The aim of stakeholders of London Olympics is to make this event economically, socially and environmentally sustainable by regenerating the area and repeating the success of Sydney's Olympics in 2000.
Environmental sustainability will be achieved by using only recycledor existing materials. Most of the buildings will be built on brownfield sites. All cables will be put underground to make the area look nicer. The river Lee and all area around it will be cleaned.
Social sustainability will be achieved in number of ways. First of all, over 3000 new jobs will be created for the area, giving investment into one of London's poorest boroughs. Another way how stakeholders will make London Olympics socially sustainable is by building up the Olympic village and after the Games converting it to low cost houses creating approx. 3000 new homes. However, Sydney said the same but then sold all the houses at market price.
Economical sustainability will be achieved by creating about 3000 new jobs in the area and about 15000 new jobs all around England. However, 380 local companies will have to move out to make way for Olympic venues, which means that some of the 11000 existing jobs in the area will be lost. However, buildings which were built for London's Olympics will be used after Olympics as well. For example, London's Olympics communication center after the Olympics probably will be sold to BBC and will still be used as a communication or broadcasting center.
Both London's and Sydney's Olympics stakeholders make the same mistake while trying to make Olympics as sustainable as possible. They do everything about environmental and economical sustainability but forget about social sustainability which in my opinion should be cared the most, because it involves people and their quality of life. However, London's Olympics will be only in 2012 therefore I can't make any conclusions how successful it was, because it still haven't happened. Anyway, looking at what they have already done I think that London's Olympics 2012 will be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable event and will be an example to other countries how they should organize the Olympics or any other events by making it socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
