The road to sustainability is paved with green intentions. In the case of the upcoming Olympic Track Trials, known as “Eugene 08,” that road has been paved over with good old-fashioned black tar.
The conflicting goals and ideals embodied by the track trials, in the end, will not produce a “zero waste” or fully sustainable event because in the flurry of activity surrounding the event, short term profit is placed before the long term philosophical and social goals of sustainability.
This does not mean that there are no sustainable efforts, or that the efforts of those involved in those efforts are meaningless; however, those efforts are overshadowed by the unrelenting and all-invasive need for profit in a capitalist system.
The excitement about the “green” and “sustainable” aspects of Eugene 08 have given way to more practical concerns about making money. The peak of green energy seems to have waned near the end of last year. In November 2007 KLCC broadcast a report about sustainable efforts that are part of the Olympic event.
A critical fact given in the report is that the Sustainability Committee does not have a dedicated budget and must rely upon volunteer efforts. In other words, a failure to dedicate funds to a sustainability effort is a conscious decision to give lip service to a lot of the sustainable catchphrases, hoping that people’s passion will be cheap investment capitol where cash can be spent elsewhere.
One place the University put some resources to support Eugene 08 was directly into the sustainable image-building that many have become familiar with over the last several months. Last year the University’s Event Management Research Team, on behalf of the 2008 Olympic Track & Field Sustainability Committee, conducted research to find out what logos would best represent “the sustainability aspects of community events,” specifically Eugene 08, and how it may be portrayed to relate to sustainable policies in “transportation, energy, water, waste management, social justice, labor, purchasing and community legacy.”
In the story reported by KLCC, Sustainability Chair Alex Cuyler explained how many of the sustainable aspects, those that focus on environmental, social and economic sustainability, are engineered deep into the planning, along with how fans and athletes will arrive to Hayward Field by shuttle or bike, eat organic food with compostable utensils, presort their recyclables and trash, refill their water bottles, and drop off their old shoes to be turned into track surfaces.
Of all these “sustainable” aspects, the conflicted ideology is most apparent in the last – that being the idea that fans should fly or drive old shoes to Eugene and leave them to be transported to another location and reused as track surfacing. It seems the idea is that this feel-good publicity event will help “save our planet.” The reality is more along the lines that fans are expected to go to the local Nike store and buy a new pair of made-in-Taiwan shoes. This feel-good ideology further breaks down when you realize that Nike is moving its store from Eugene’s ailing downtown to Oakway Center, which relies more on vehicle traffic than pedestrian or bike-riding shoppers.
A truly laudable effort, however, are those made in remodeling Hayward Field using recycled materials and economic design, especially in regards to the new lighting systems. Eugene 08 is also attempting to use only “green power” for the three-by-one block area of the event.
In spite of all the “green” energy behind Eugene 08, the ideological conflicts can be crystallized in the Sustainability Committee’s efforts to have fans buy carbon offset credits to make up for the “carbon footprint” of their flights to Eugene. This desperate attempt to “greenify” everything with a sort of Green Giant Midas Touch is more embarrassing and painful than laughable. While “greenies” attack air traffic as a cause of global climate change, local investors understand it is this same air traffic that is key to local economic and social sustainability.
On March 30, the Register-Guard published a small piece on new air services to Eugene – United 737 flights. The story reports that, according to airport manager Tim Doll, the renewed service “will be a boon for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials this summer.” This may be an indicator that Eugene is on the path to revitalizing its local economy by luring in investors, visitors and new residents who can help reverse the sort of decay that is epitomized by the gaping holes in Eugene’s downtown area.
It also demonstrates the hyper-ambivalence of our catchphrase and logo-heavy sustainability movement. So in the midst of this rush to cash in on the trials, and the conflicts between environmental, social and economic sustainability, we may all be telling the environment “Just Screw It,” while we wear our sustainable logo T-shirts, sport our new imported Nike shoes, and get ready to fly back home and tell everyone how they should catch a comfortable 737 flight to Eugene and make some carbon footprints in America’s number one Green City.
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