Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Sustainability as global attractor:
the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
ARTHUR P. J. MOL
Department of Social Sciences,
Wageningen University, The Netherlands
arthur.mol@wur.nl
Abstract If one interprets sustainability as an attractor, it means that across time
and place notions and ideas of sustainability structure, order and pattern institutions
and practices. One can effectively explore the idea that sustainability is turning into a
global attractor through mega events. As high profile and very visible happenings
that attract worldwide attention, it is difficult to ignore common and widely shared
norms on sustainability in the route towards such events. In investigating the 2008
Beijing Olympics I conclude that sustainability norms indeed restructured and
patterned this global mega event. Moreover, these sustainability norms are
crystallized, institutionalized and fixed in material and social structures, and thus will
likely have some permanency.
Keywords COMPLEXITY, SUSTAINABILITY, GLOBAL ATTRACTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS,
MEGA EVENT
Today we witness two almost contrasting tendencies with respect to the idea of
sustainability. First, the notion of sustainability seems to be heavily, and increasingly,
criticized. It appears to be highly fragmented, strongly context dependent, to entail
multiple definitions and interpretations, and (mis)used by all kind of interests in
different ways. Questions of what exactly sustainability means, what dimensions of
sustainability we refer to, what time line is included, and whose sustainability we are
talking about more than incidentally blur and confuse discussions on sustainability.
Several scholars have called for a postmortem on sustainability exactly for these
reasons.
Second, regardless of this ongoing confusion, debate, diverging interpretations and
multiple definitions, people still use sustainability as a central concept in current
debates and discourses, with at least some commonality in meaning and use. As social
scientists, we should be surprised that the concept of sustainability is still out there (in
society, politics and the sciences) and has not yet been abandoned. In our (post)
modern times of high fluidity, with rapid turnover of fashionable ideas, where
‘everything that is solid melts into thin air’, it is remarkable that such an old-
Global Networks 10, 4 (2010). ISSN 1470–2266. © 2010 The Author(s)
510 Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd & Global Networks PartnershipSustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
fashioned concept – launched more than 20 years ago – is still so solidly present in
debates and practices. With Nicholas Stern, Al Gore, the IPCC, carbon markets,
company sustainability reporting, green investment funds, the global diffusion of eco-
and fair-trade labels, sustainability indices, and sustainability conditionalities on
development aid (to name but a few tendencies), I do not think we are ready for a
postmortem on sustainability.
This latter observation might rather be a reason to investigate another
sustainability thesis, almost opposite to its postmortem. Instead of investigating the
end of sustainability, should we not be more interested in its role as a global
attractor? Has sustainability become a concept or idea that increasingly redirects
institutions, practices, structures, norms and ideologies globally? Has it become a
commonly shared notion that can no longer be ignored, not even by the powers that
be, which now have to pay more than lip service to sustainability in order to
legitimize their behaviour? Is sustainability perhaps developing into the most recent
Grand Narrative, which prevents us from full postmodernity?
Mega events provide an interesting case through which to study the idea of
sustainability as a new global attractor. As high profile and very visible happenings
that attract worldwide attention, organizers can hardly ignore common norms on
environment, democracy, transparency and equality in the route towards such an
event. Mega events are points of convergence (Close et al. 2007: 2) or
crystallization points for a cluster of major developments at and between different
levels of social life. Moreover, mega events are almost by definition global: the site
is selected globally, the reporting on the event is global, the participants are global,
and the politics, economics and culture around it are global. Do we also see
sustainability emerging and taking centre stage at such global mega events in
discursive and material ways? How and to what extent does sustainability become
crystallized, institutionalized and ‘fixed’ in material and social infrastructures, to
have some permanency beyond the mega event, when things seem to return to
business as usual.
Studies have begun to emerge on the environmental conditionalities of such mega
events, especially since the Olympics in Australia in 2000 (‘the greenest Olympics
ever’). Since 2000, sustainability seems to have gained a solid place in the design and
operation of the Olympics, but also of other global mega events such as world fairs.
Sustainability was also behind the election of Beijing to host the 2008 Olympic
Games. The West currently sees China as a leading polluter and a notoriously
undemocratic state, with limitations in transparency. Through the Olympics, or so the
argument went, China would improve its environmental and democratic profile. With
the world watching China, China could not but modernize – ecologically and
politically. Others, using two lines of argument, have been less optimistic. First, while
ecological modernization and political modernization might emerge discursively with
the Olympics, they do not necessarily bring institutionalization, crystallization and
‘materialization’, making improvements short-term public relations accomplishments
at best. Second, Olympic-related advances in environmental and democratic/
transparency improvements in China are rather meagre against the sheer size of the
© 2010 The Author(s) 511Arthur P. J. Mol
problems China faces in these respects. The 2008 Beijing Olympics provided an
interesting case to investigate whether we indeed witness the move to centre stage of
sustainability during (the run up to) such mega events; and to what extent
sustainability has some permanency beyond the mega event, both locally at the place
of the mega event and globally through the redirection of the networks, flows and
infrastructures that structure these events.
In the third and fourth sections of this article, I take the 2008 China Olympics as a
case study for investigating the concept of sustainability as a global attractor. First,
however, in the second section, I develop a theoretical perspective of the central-
ization of sustainability in social processes and institutional developments, drawing
on ecological modernization theory and the sociology of networks and flows. Finally,
I draw conclusions on sustainability as an attractor. In all this, the focus is on the
environmental dimensions of sustainability, with transparency and democracy only
addressed in relation to that. Consequently, there is nothing on Tibet, Falun Gong, the
Uighur minority, unequal development and general media openness (all key issues for
democracy and transparency as such in China). While these issues closely relate to
sustainability, for reasons of space I focus primarily on a more restricted, environ-
mental definition of sustainability.
Attractors, sustainability and mega events
The notion of attractor stems from system theory, as primarily used in the natural
and complexity sciences but now also in the social sciences. If, over time, a
dynamic system fails to occupy all possible parts of a space randomly, but instead
occupies only a restricted specific part of that space, a pattern emerges. The
emergence of such patterns within a system stems from attractors. In complex
systems, numerous iterations through time are attracted in certain directions, also
through various feedback loops. Social scientists and sciences have paralleled this
language and conceptualization of natural and complexity sciences, using similar
concepts, ideas, metaphors and ‘laws’ to frame and understand the dynamics of
social systems and society–nature interaction patterns. Within sociology, John Urry
(2000, 2003) is arguably one of the better-known examples, but we see it also
emerging in notions of resilience and adaptive management and governance (cf.
Folke et al. 2005; Lebel et al. 2006), following the work of the systems ecologist
C. S. Hollings. It goes beyond the scope of this article to analyse the advantages and
weaknesses of such disciplinary border crossing, especially between the social and
natural sciences. My use of the complexity science notion of attractors is rather
instrumental. In using the attractor concept I am neither suggesting that a greater
merging of natural and social sciences into one overarching complexity science is a
road to be taken (let alone the only), nor do I intend to embrace systems theory as a
privileged theoretical position in the longstanding social science debate on agency
and structure.
The current emerging global order is no longer structured centrally, but through
multiple interdependent organizations and institutions that together demonstrate
512 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
the ‘capability to “orientate” to macro-level properties’ (Gilbert 1995: 151). In
contrast to the view of anarchic global disorder, as well as to the idea of a single
ordering structure of the global system (for example capitalism, the UN system,
the clash of civilizations), Urry (2003) introduces the notion of pockets of
ordering. These are processes involving a particular performance of the global and
operating over multiple time spaces and through various feedback mechanisms.
These pockets of ordering involve various networks, flows and governance
mechanisms and produce similar shapes and ‘results’ at very different places and
scales across the world. One can see attractors as the ‘governing’ signifiers or
properties that structure the pockets of ordering, demonstrating similar and
repetitive shapes and regularities at distinct places, processes and practices.
Attractors act as magnetic forces, drawing complex (social) systems into specific
trajectories during iterative loops in the system. Four different forms of attractors
are usually distinguished – point, periodic point, periodic, and strange attractors
(cf. Gilstrap 2005), but for complex social systems strange attractors are most
commonly referred to. ‘Strange attractors are reflected in patterns of behaviour,
that is shapes in space or movement in time, which are never exactly repeated but
are always similar to each other’ (Stacey 2003: 44). Feedback mechanisms and
high information input are characteristics of strange attractors, leading to what are
often called adaptive systems.
Sustainability as attractor
If we interpret sustainability as a strange attractor in social systems we mean that
across time and place, and through multiple networks and flows, institutions and
practices are structured, ‘ordered’ or patterned following notions and ideas of sus-
tainability. One can identify pockets of ordering in a sea of disorder when practices
and institutions are infiltrated with sustainability claims, norms and interests,
strengthened through the various feedback mechanisms of interest groups, politicians,
media, businesses, citizens and competitors who react to shortfalls as well as to the
successful attempts to restructure practices and institutions along ideas of
sustainability. Information flows play a crucial role in restructuring conventional
processes and practices into more sustainable ones. Information flows not just
communicate ideas and interest over large stretches of space and time; they have also
turned into a constitutive force in the Information Age, and with respect to the
environment (cf. Mol 2008). The current information scape enables these pockets of
ordering to have global outlooks.
To some extent, the idea of sustainability as attractor resembles ideas of ecological
modernization (Mol 2006; Spaargaren and Mol 1992). Ecological modernization
refers to the growing emergence of an ecological rationality in processes of
production and consumption, next to and partly independent of economic, political
and other rationalities. One can witness the articulation – and subsequent
institutionalization – of an ecological rationality in politics (for example in ministries
of the environment, environmental laws, green parties and multilateral environmental
© 2010 The Author(s) 513Arthur P. J. Mol
agreements). One can also witness it in the life world (in environmental NGOs,
environmental periodicals, magazines and television programmes, and in widely
shared environmental norms and values), as well as in the economy and markets (such
as in green accounting, company environmental reporting, green investment funds,
environmental standards and labels, and in environmental industries). This emergent
ecological rationality enables societies, social groups and organizations to analyse,
judge, shape and design production and consumption processes with independent
ecological criteria (besides other criteria such as efficiency, fairness and equity). This
idea of the ecological modernization of production and consumption especially fits
the analysis and understanding of actual processes of environmental reform in a
relatively ordered world with a build up of nation-states and societies as units of
analysis. Numerous authors have used this concept/idea to analyse environmental
reform (and its failures) in political, economic and other institutions around the world
(cf. Mol et al. 2009).
With globalization and the increasing complexity of the global order, an
increasing number of social theorists argue that the ‘zombie concepts’ of states and
societies have to be replaced by networks and flows as the key analytical concepts.
Networks and flows have become the true architects of global modernity. While, as
argued elsewhere (Mol 2008; Mol et al. 2009), this does not render the ecological
modernization paradigm out of order, it does call for a further ‘update’ of environ-
mental reform analysis and theory to make it better fit current times. Until further
notice, various attempts to rethink environmental reform under conditions of
globalization can be brought together under the banner of an environmental sociology
of networks and flows (Spaargaren et al. 2006). This is how introducing the notion of
attractor into environmental reform analysis should be understood.
How should we understand sustainability as an attractor? In multiple networks
and flows of different kinds, which are – each in their own way – formative for
global modernity, sustainability has become included and a point of direction. This
means that actors, rules and resources; the socio-material infrastructures/scapes; and
the flows themselves articulate and include sustainability considerations and
interests. With the inclusion of sustainability in multiple networks and flows, these
architects of modernity have changed. For instance, increasingly commodity
networks and flows of (green) products, financial flows (of ethical investments as
well as more conventional ones), and tourism mobility include environmental
conditionalities in some ways and to some degree. Consequently, sustainability
inclusion in networks and flows pursue a different ‘outcome’ at the places,
institutions and systems to which they connect. Hence, sustainability can be
identified as becoming a ‘point of orientation’, a commonality that reroutes flows
and reconstitutes networks, be it to varying degrees for different networks and
flows. The processes and dynamics through which this happens are of course very
diverse for the different networks and flows; they include a variety of resources,
governing actors, mechanisms, dependencies and power relations. Transnational
advocacy networks with their information flows of blaming and shaming and
commodity or financial networks of business and investors, articulate sustainability
514 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
in different ways; both differ from the political networks of states, cities and
international organizations that are involved in international standards setting and
regime formation. Interpreting sustainability as a global attractor basically brings a
common focus to the various ways in which sustainability norms, interests and
considerations are articulated in these global networks and flows. Sustainability is
incorporated into (and gives direction to) these very diverse networks and flows, be
it in different ways, to different degrees and through different mechanisms. No
matter how different each of these networks and flows, together they direct a
pattern (or pocket of ordering) of sustainability in systems, places and institutions.
As with the notion of ecological modernization, also here one should interpret
sustainability in (interdependent) material and discursive ways as norms and ideas,
but also as actual/materialized outcomes at places, systems and institutions.
Mega events and the Olympics
Mega events originate from the late nineteenth century, during times of nation-state
and empire building. They are short-lived collective – usually cultural – actions that
have long-lived pre- and post-event social dimensions, impacts and effects (Roche
2003). Planned, but also unexpected, mega events – world expos, Live Aid concerts,
Earth Summits, Olympic Games, World Cups, Diana’s death and funeral – bring
together various signifiers of an emergent global order. Such signifiers reflect and
perform a global imagined community, and provide a united frame for different
people, generations, genders and classes. On occasions of mega events, global images
and signifiers are (re)produced, circulated, recognized and consumed, not only at the
space of place where the mega event physically takes place, but also worldwide
through the media of screens and bits. As such, mega events are time-space
condensed hubs, around which the economic, cultural and even political flows and
networks interact and exchange, and thus structure social life. They are a special,
extraordinary kind of time-structuring institution in modernity, due to their large
scale, the temporal cycles and lack of a fixed, national location.
Mega events have changed under progressing globalization. Although since its
origin the Olympic Games always presented itself as a global event, its expansion
has gone through various stages, only to turn more recently into a truly global mega
event. By 2008, 205 NOCs were member of the International Olympic Committee.
With its close linkage to global advertising, global corporate sponsoring and selling
broadcasting rights to the global media since the 1980s, the Olympics became more
profitable, more closely linked to global capital and turned into a global media
event. It also resulted in growing interests of cities – especially global cities (Sassen
1994) – in the bidding process. Organizing the Olympics became increasingly ‘a
significant opportunity to recontextualize cities by connecting them to a global
space of flows and reconstituting them internally. New and improved links with the
wider world plug the city more effectively into the global flows of capital, people
and ideas’ (Short 2003). Hence, city authorities and leaders develop what
Andranovich et al. (2001: 113) label a mega-event strategy to position their city in
© 2010 The Author(s) 515Arthur P. J. Mol
global economic competition. By themselves, mega events constitute exchange
hubs in global economic, political and cultural networks and flows of social life
(Roche 2003), not unlike how Saskia Sassen analysed the position of global cities in
world financial flows.
That the Olympics is a truly global event and embodies globalization, on the
whole has a positive connotation throughout the world and is closely related to many
vested interests, means that major corporations have a significant interest in getting
the Olympics in places with yet underdeveloped but fast growing markets. But it is
much too simple to draw a straight line between the Olympic movement’s selection
for China/Beijing and the interest of large corporations. Besides an economic mega
event, the Olympics is also a political and cultural mega event, as Close et al. (2007:
24) rightly argue. The Olympic Games is also important for its political and cultural
impacts, for these dimensions play a full role in such things as deciding what cities to
propose as candidates, the bidding process, the decision-making process to grant cities
the organization and location of Olympic Games, and the final implementation of the
Olympic Games. This helps one avoid the trap of economic determinism in analysing
the Olympic Games.
Are Olympics also environmental mega events? In other words, do environ-
mental considerations play a full role in proposing cities as candidates, in the
bidding process, in the decision-making process to grant cities the Olympic Games
organization, and in the implementation of the Olympic Games? Only since the
1990s have the Olympic Games’ environmental dimensions started to be
articulated. First, in the 1990s, global and local NGO environmentalists at the place
of the Olympic Games became very active in discussing the environmental
consequences of the Olympic Games, in all their dimensions. People accused
international and local transport in preparation of and during the Olympics of
increasing greenhouse gas emissions. They claimed it was eco inefficient to build
gigantic new facilities with little use afterwards. They heavily criticized the waste at
the Olympics from catering, poor incorporation of Olympic facilities into the
surrounding landscapes, poor use of renewable energy and material resources, and
the low recycling rates. Second, an environmental ‘pillar’ was slowly but steadily
built into Olympic institutions. This followed a wider development, with the 1987
Brundtland report and the 1992 UNCED conference as the symbolic milestones of
increasing sensitivity around the world to the environmental agenda. In 1986, the
IOC president Samaranch, with perfect timing, declared the environment as the
third pillar of Olympism, next to sports and culture. Only in the 1990s, however,
did the IOC start to operationalize this third pillar, resulting in increasing precision
from 1996 onwards of the environmental requirements in the Manual for Candidate
Cities (which guides the bidding process). The 1994 winter games at Lillehammer
were the first to consider environmental factors, followed by Nagano (Cantelon and
Letters 2000), but the 2000 Sydney games especially moved ‘green Olympics’ from
the IOC agenda into practice (Karamichas 2007). Through Olympic Games Impact
Studies (introduced in 2003), over 100 economic, socio-cultural and environmental
indicators now assess the impacts of these games. Regular World Conferences on
516 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Sport and Environment – the seventh took place in Beijing in 2007 – further
develop the sustainability agenda and actions of Olympic Games. Since Sydney, the
environment has obtained its place in global Olympic processes and institutions (in
the formal assessment and bidding, in the public debate and discourse about the
Olympics, and in the concrete implementation of the local infrastructures and
institutions that determine the outlook of the Olympic Games). However, the
question regularly emerges of how far these environmental dimensions really reach.
If indeed sustainability has turned into a global attractor that reroutes and
restructures the flows and networks of global modernity, it should ‘materialize’ and
become visible and identifiable at and around mega events such as the Olympics.
There we should be able to identify and point out the proliferation, impact and
institutionalization of sustainability in the networks, flows and institutions that
structure and construct these global happenings. The 2008 Olympic Games at
Beijing is a strong litmus test of that, given China’s poor sustainability record at the
start of this millennium (Carter and Mol 2007; World Bank 1997).
Beijing Olympics and the quest for sustainability
China’s ambitions to stage the Olympics started in the late 1980s (Ong 2004: 35),
basically in the hope of increasing international prestige, building an image of
national strength and unity, strengthening the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
domestically, and using the Olympics as a development engine. Compared with
other hosting cities, Beijing’s wish to host the Olympics was more for national than
city reasons, and more for political than economic ones. The mega projects of
Beijing’s Olympics reflect China’s ambition to transform its image of
backwardness, tradition, red tape and corruption and to reclaim its position as
global leader with an image of progress, efficiency and economic success
(Broudehoux 2007). In current times, good environmental quality is definitely part
of such a new modern image.
Beijing made its first bid in 1993, which was for the 2000 Olympic Games, and it
lost narrowly to Sydney. The environment played hardly any role in that bidding
process, either in the document the IOC prepared for prospective hosts or in the
discussions and decision-making that followed. That was notably different in
1
Beijing’s 2001 bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Beijing followed Sydney’s example
when budgeting for its Olympics by including the latter’s path-breaking attention to
the environment and a green Olympics. In the 2001 final promotion of Beijing during
the IOC decision-making event, Wang Wei (2005), the secretary general of the
Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), indicated that
Beijing has ‘come a long way since its last bid in 1993’ (BOCOG 2008), for it made a
major commitment to the environment in its bid for the 2008 Olympics. Beijing
invested its games with three themes – theirs would be a green Olympics, a high-tech
Olympics and a people’s Olympics. While there remains much to be said and
analysed on the last two themes (MacDonald 2003; Ong 2004), in this article I
concentrate on the first theme.
© 2010 The Author(s) 517Arthur P. J. Mol
The green profile of the Beijing Olympics
Beijing started environmental preparations for its Olympics as far back as 1999 by
including the environment in the design of the Olympics at an early stage. This was
necessary for its success, for environmentalists, medical specialists and athletes in
many countries were concerned about China’s environmental problems. Although the
authorities, scientists and the public in China were paying increasing attention to the
environment, it was not (yet) a high priority for the state or CCP at the turn of the
millennium. With economic growth reaching double figures, many backward
technologies and industrial plants still operating, limited investment in environmental
protection and the absence of a powerful environmental lobby, China witnessed
ongoing environmental deterioration in all sectors. ‘Clear water, blue skies’ (World
Bank 1997) was put on the agenda at the turn of the millennium, but both were far
from being in reach (Mol and Carter 2006). With the example of the green Olympics
coming to fruition in Sydney, BOCOG understood the growing importance of
environment in the various global economic, political and cultural networks and flows
that constitute the Olympic movement. Turning China’s poor environmental profile
and record to advantage, BOCOG argued that staging the Olympics there would
inspire, facilitate and spread further environmental improvements in Beijing and
wider China. These it would achieve by introducing global standards and benchmarks
for urban development; bringing in foreign technology and expertise; raising environ-
mental awareness; changing political priorities and domestic and foreign investments;
and triggering institutional innovations. Beijing’s Olympic Action Plan (OAP) for the
2008 games clearly reflected this. It identified 20 key projects to improve Beijing’s
environment. The OAP would incorporate an ecological environment and infra-
structure, energy saving measures, renewable resources and environmental protection
into the Olympic facilities, systems, processes and organizational structure.
What has the actual environmental impact of the Olympics been on Beijing and
wider China? Liao Xiudong (2008), a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee and
consultant for BOCOG, stressed how many opportunities the additional environmental
budget would provide; the original proposal was for US$ 12.2 billion between 1999 and
2007 (UNEP 2007) but it was later increased to US$ 17.5 billion (UNEP 2009). It would
both significantly strengthen Beijing’s environmental authorities and regenerate
environmental experiments and the setting of new standards and rules. While at other
large events, such as the fiftieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, the
authorities achieved temporary environmental improvements by shutting down factories,
many of the Olympic efforts involved long-term, permanent and institutionalized clean-
ups. The environment permeated all Olympic processes – design and construction,
refurbishment, marketing, procurement, logistics, accommodation, transport, office work,
publicity and operational affairs. All projects had to pass environmental impact
assessments, even though they were often not legally necessary, and 14 new wastewater
treatment facilities were installed. Five new public metro lines were laid especially for
the Olympics, thus doubling the mileage to more than 200 kilometres. Acceleration in
leapfrogging vehicle emission standards was achieved, to Euro IV standards in 2007.
518 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Around 90 per cent of all buses and 70 per cent of all taxis had been converted to natural
gas by early 2008. A subsidy helped to accelerate the change of old taxis for new ones,
and a city-wide vehicle inspection, testing and green labelling programme was effected.
Rapid transition of coal-fired power plants towards gas-fired power plants had been
realized by late 2007; this included all major boilers greater than 20 tons, nearly all
16,000 of under 20 tons, and 44,000 of less than one ton. Between 2000 and 2006, some
200 industries were relocated – sometimes combined with environmental upgrading –
including two of the largest industrial polluters, the Beijing Capital Iron and Steel Group
and the Beijing Huaer Company (chemicals). Rapid phase-out of ozone-depleting CFCs
2
took place in the city of Beijing, six years ahead of the national deadline. Procurement
guidelines for the Olympics reflected sustainability. Several other deadlines of the
already existing and approved Beijing Environmental Master Plan (1997–2015) were
moved forward to take effect before the Olympics. In addition, expansion of the city
greenbelt in Beijing from 36 per cent to 43 per cent of the urban surface between 2000
and 2008 (UNEP 2009: 64) and reforestation of the mountains and fields surrounding
Beijing were implemented to reduce sand and dust storms (UNEP 2009). Major national
anti-erosion and reforestation programmes – though not specifically designed for the
Olympics – had similar land coverage effects in more western provinces, which together
affected the sand and dust storms that reach Beijing. In spring 2006 there were 18 dust
storms reported in Beijing.
Did all these efforts result in better environmental quality? The crucial and most
contested issue in the run-up to the Olympics was air quality. Most monitoring data
indeed show improvements in air quality indicators in the years up to the Olympics,
such as ozone, CO, NO2 and SO2. Figure 1 provides annual average monitoring data
for NO2, SO2, CO and PM10 for a number of years. Perhaps except for PM10 (where
most of the discussion focused), all indicators show slow but steadily decreasing
tendencies. The number of days with air quality better than the national standard II
3
increased from 100 in 1998 to 246 in 2007 (see Figure 2). The general assessment is
that, although significant sustainability measures have been taken to reduce air
pollution, a number of factors prevented more far-reaching air quality improvements.
These include dependency on other up-wind provinces (most notably Hebei, Shanxi,
Shandong and Inner Mongolia) where there has been less cleaning up of coal mining,
power plants, cement plants and steel and iron plants; the specific geographical
location of Beijing; and the fact that air quality improvements require more than six
years (Streets et al. 2007). As UNEP (2007; see also UNEP 2009) concluded one year
before the Olympics, ‘despite the relatively positive trends of recent years, air quality
remains a legitimate concern for Olympic organizers, competitors and observers, as
well as for the citizens of Beijing’. In the end, emergency measures combined with a
fortunate change of weather caused relatively low air pollution levels during the
4
Olympics and Paralympics. In August 2008 levels of SO2, CO and NO2 in Beijing
were 45 per cent lower than in July, falling back to levels normal in developed
countries. August 2008 also counted an extraordinary number of days with the highest
air quality (14 days of level I), and only one day with the lowest air quality (level III)
(Beijing EPB data).
© 2010 The Author(s) 519Arthur P. J. Mol
Figure 1: Annual mean NO2, SO2 and PM10 (in μg/m3; left axis) and CO (in
mg/m3; right axis) concentrations in Beijing, 2000–2008
200 4.0
NO2 SO2 PM10 CO
180 3.5
160
3.0
140
120 2.5
100 2.0
80 1.5
60
1.0
40
20 0.5
0 0.0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Source data: BEPB 2009; UNEP 2007 and 2009.
Figure 2: Numbers of days with air quality index equal or better than national
standard II, 1998–2008
300
274
241 246
250 229 234
224
203
200 185
177
150
114
100
100
50
0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Source data: BEPB 2009; UNEP 2007 and 2009.
520 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Besides air quality a number of other environmental improvements have been
reached. By having installed 3.0 million m3/day wastewater treatment capacity at the
time the Olympics started, surface water quality in Beijing improved considerably. In
addition to measures to prevent water pollution, a variety of water saving schemes,
rainwater collection technologies and water reuse systems have been implemented.
Many of the improvements in waste reuse and recycling will have similar environ-
mental legacies beyond the Olympics. The Beijing Olympic Village received a LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) award from the USA’s Green
Building Council for, among other things, its use of environmentally friendly paints,
used building materials, applied energy systems and waste recycling.
The general assessments made by the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau
(BEPB 2009), but also by independent organizations such as UNEP (2007 and 2009)
and Greenpeace (Zhang 2008), are on the whole positive about the actual environ-
mental improvements following the Olympics. In that sense, the green Olympics
amounted to more than just public relations and plans.
Environmental criticism
In the route towards the Olympic Games, most hosting cities have experienced
environmental concerns and criticism of local, national and even international NGOs
on the potential environmental (and other) consequences, often leading to reduced
support for or even opposition to the event (Del Corpo and Dansero 2007). Polls in
Beijing and China (by Chinese and independent organizations) have witnessed
continuously high levels of public support for the Olympics (all above 90 per cent).
There has been only limited criticism of the environmental dimensions of Olympic
facilities within China. This can be related to (i) the significant environmental projects
planned and implemented by Beijing, in a situation of generally poor environmental
quality; and (ii) the limited experiences with and opportunities for environmental
activism and criticism in China (Carter and Mol 2007; Xie 2009). The Beijing
authorities did, through financial incentives, encourage citizens to complain about
environmental misbehaviour, resulting in 2300 complaints in 2006 (with 59,000 RMB
paid on incentives to complain; http://en.beijing2008.cn/47/82/article214008247.
shtml). In its assessment of the progress BOCOG made after its environmental
promises, UNEP (2007 and 2009) was least enthusiastic about BOCOG’s
collaboration with 30 domestic and international environmental NGOs. Few activities
were undertaken in this area, and opportunities to raise environmental awareness
further (during and after the Olympics) and mobilize civil society had not been seized.
Especially given the negative media reporting expected on China’s environmental
profile, UNEP considers this a major omission. Still, it is surprising that local and
global environmental NGOs active on the Olympics, such as Greenpeace China,
Conservation International, World Wide Fund for Nature WWF, IUCN, Global
5
Village Beijing, Green Earth Volunteers and Future Generations/China, developed
rather friendly, collaborative relations with BOCOG and the Beijing authorities.
Illustrative is that many NGOs defended the Beijing authorities when negative
© 2010 The Author(s) 521Arthur P. J. Mol
discussions on air quality emerged in the international media. Moreover, Greenpeace
(Zhang 2008) gave a very friendly assessment of the Beijing Olympics, although it
also stressed the lack of transparency, difficulties of independent verification of
environmental data, and poor use of international certification systems such as LEED
and FSC. While compared with other issues such as Tibet, Taiwan, Falun Gong, the
Uighur and the military, environmental reporting has become less restricted in the
media over the last decade (Gang 2009; Mol 2009), the high-profile Olympics did
limit the room for manoeuvre for environmental NGOs. As Kahn and Yardley (2007)
put it:
At least two leading environmental organizers have been prosecuted in recent
weeks, and several others have received sharp warnings to tone down their
criticism of local officials. One reason the authorities have cited: the need for
social stability before the 2008 Olympics, once viewed as an opportunity for
China to improve the environment.
In the build-up to the Olympics, environmental scientists were told to be cautious in
their media contacts on environmental quality in Beijing. Often official permission
6
was required for environmental scientists to speak to the foreign media.
Patterning mega events and beyond
This overview of environmental reforms related to the 2008 Olympics of course
comes to no conclusion on the success of the green Olympics in Beijing. That would
need analysis that is much more extensive, but it does allow us to draw a number of
conclusions with respect to the centrality of environmental sustainability in the 2008
Beijing mega event.
Certainly compared with the former Olympic Games in Athens, international
governmental and non-governmental organizations widely applauded Beijing for
having lived up to most of its promises for a green Olympics (UNEP 2007, 2009;
7
Zhang 2008 ). Most of the environmental promises and OAP plans were realized. As
such, the Olympics accelerated environmental reform in Beijing, although much
remains to be done on the environment in Beijing. Local and national resources and
networks were put to work to make Beijing greener, as is clear from the former
section. They reformed the transport system, made Olympic facilities greener, saved
water and improved its quality, relocated and cleaned up industries, reduced air
pollution, expanded green coverage and enhanced renewable energy use. Trans-
national flows and networks were equally crucial in greening this mega event.
International information flows and media networks articulated environment strongly
through their constant reporting, from the moment Beijing was elected as the host city
to the end of the Paralympics. Foreign environmental technology, service, design and
consulting industries and networks obtained major contracts for several of the
Olympic projects and venues, and contributed considerably to advanced and up-to-
date renewable energy use, environmentally sound construction, water saving
522 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
systems, and the planning of green space. By institutionalizing environment in their
bid, decision-making and implementation monitoring processes the global IOC
network was a major factor in articulating environmental sustainability in all phases
of the Beijing Olympics process, as reported above. Most of the main international
official sponsors and suppliers of the Olympics (all major multinationals) included the
8
environment in their local and global advertisements, products and activities. Finally,
international organizations such as UNEP, IUCN and WWF have kept in close touch
with BOCOG to advise and assess the greening of the Olympic games, putting
continuous ‘pressure’ (via the international media) on the organizing committee to
live up to its promise of a green Olympics. Sustainability was a key factor in these
global networks and flows. In that sense, local and global networks and flows around
this mega event did articulate – to different degrees and in different ways –
sustainability, and as such directed the patterns of this mega event towards greening.
Thus, one can interpret sustainability as an attractor en route to the final Olympic
Games, articulated in and redirecting global and local flows and networks, and
materialized in discursive processes and socio-material systems, among which are
transport, venue construction and use, green space, energy and water.
Notwithstanding this conclusion, it would be a misunderstanding to relate this all
to the 2008 Olympics. Before this mega event (and largely independent of it), China
identified the environment and natural resources as one of its major future problems/
constraints on further development. Since the mid-1990s, much effort has gone into
implementing a more effective system of environmental protection. These efforts
include more efficient use of the country’s natural resources, more environmental
investment, more environmental staff, more environmental R&D, more environmental
laws and regulations, more (freedom for) environmental NGOs, more eco labelling,
more ISO14001-certified Chinese firms, more environmental complaints, and
deforestation turning into reforestation (Gang 2009; Mol 2006; Mol and Carter 2006).
Many of these developments were not merely internal domestic affairs, but were
equally related to the economic, political and cultural opening up of China. They were
to do with the WTO and increasing the global (inflow and outflow) trade and
investments that articulate for instance food safety, environmental standards and
green labelling. They were also to do with China’s increasing interest in international
environmental agreements and international environmental organizations, and with
the global norms and values of sustainability and quality of life that have entered
China via multiple flows and networks. In that sense, we should not overestimate the
role of the Olympics. The green Olympics further strengthened and articulated
existing sustainable development tendencies in China; the Olympics could include a
green discourse and performance because it fitted into existing sustainability
attractors in various national and international networks and flows.
One of the main reasons why China aspired to organize the Olympics was to
strengthen its position globally, to become again one of the world superpowers
(Broudehoux 2007; Carter and Mol 2006). Today, acquiring, safeguarding and
strengthening this position is not just a matter of economic power or military strength.
It has also to do with becoming a legitimate and respected member of the inter-
© 2010 The Author(s) 523Arthur P. J. Mol
national community. Today environmental sustainability is fully part of such a
legitimate position. The global and domestic interests and legitimacy of the CCP and
the state are to a major extent fortified by a better environmental record and more
environmental transparency. Hence, a green Olympics has multiple drivers, also
beyond narrow environmental considerations.
Consequently, we should not be too worried about the lasting effect and legacy of
these green Olympics. As the various BOCOG projects on the environment fitted
closely with both Beijing’s wider efforts to clean up the city and country further, and
with international networks and ‘projects’ in which China became engaged, these
green Olympic projects easily ‘materialized’, became institutionalized and gained
permanency. This is certainly true of the material infrastructure, the extended public
transport, the new taxis and buses, the Olympic facilities, the relocated and upgraded
industries and power plants, and the expansion of waste-water treatment plants, to
name but a few. They remain there after the Olympics and set new standards for
future work. Similarly, this is also true of the institutional and procedural changes that
took place in Beijing over environmental protection. New standards (for example on
car emissions), new development planning systems, stringent enforcement practices,
more and better air quality policy cooperation between Beijing and its neighbouring
provinces, and better EIA practices will not easily be turned back now that the
Olympics are over. To give one balanced example: after the Olympics ended, there
were large-scale domestic requests (www.ynet.com; accessed December 2008) to
make the temporary air quality measures permanent (halving the number of cars on
the streets, temporarily closing factories and lowering transport costs). Following
these requests, in autumn 2008 the Beijing government implemented a measure to
keep 20 per cent of the cars from the road during working days, based on number
plates. With an expected annual increase of 300,000 cars, this sustainability measure
will only have temporary effects and ideas on congestion charges and limited city
access by car are under consideration.
This might be valid for Beijing, but not for other parts of China. Although green
Olympics will have some environmental profits for Hebei province – due to its
geographical closeness and direct relationship with air quality in Beijing – and for
other Olympic cities such as Qingdau and Shanghai, this is not true of other provinces
and urban centres. Most environmental innovations and improvements taken in the
cause of the Olympics relate specifically to Beijing, and are not national ones. That
counts especially for innovations related to air quality, such as car emissions, the
transition of coal-fired power plants into gas-powered energy plants, green belts,
extensions to public transport and industrial relocations. Independent Gallup polls
taken in both 2006 and 2007 in Beijing and in the rest of China confirm this Beijing
bias. While 53 per cent (2006) and 66 per cent (2007) of the Beijing respondents
considered the air quality had improved in the last years, this was only 35 per cent
(2006 and 2007) for the rest of China (http://www.gallup.com/poll/105913/Beijing-
Residents-Notice-Improvement-Air-Quality.aspx, accessed January 2010). It is not that
environmental innovations and improvements do not happen in other urban centres in
China, but with less determination, at a slower speed, and with fewer results and
524 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
resources. Thus, the Olympics has a rather place-based environmental effect. It
remains to be seen – and a key question for further study – to what extent and with
what speed these environmental innovations in Beijing diffuse (through domestic and
global political, economic and civil society networks and flows) to wider China.
Epilogue: sustainability as attractor
The idea of attractors means that patterns of networks and flows are spread randomly
in space, but that specific configurations, routes and flows have prevalence over
others. In considering sustainability as an attractor, we note that these networks and
flows are rerouted and reconfigured along sustainability lines. Sustainability becomes
a point of orientation, of directionality, for local and global flows and networks.
Around mega events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in concentrated time-space,
the ‘effect’ of attractors in reorienting networks and flows is easy identifiable. Global
networks and flows directly interfere with and ‘settle down’ in local place-bound
structures and socio-material systems in a relatively short time with identifiable
outcomes/effects.
Our analysis of sustainability en route to the Beijing Olympics can be understood
in terms of a ‘sustainability attractor’ that structures and patterns local and global
networks and flows around the Olympics. This ‘sustainability attractor’ should also be
identifiable at the Shanghai-based World Expo and the Guangzhou-based 16th Asian
Games (both in 2010). It can be hypothesized that the reconfigured networks and
flows following such mega events will have some permanency, as in China a ‘sustain-
ability attractor’ is not restricted to such events. The environmental redirection of
networks and flows in China and beyond takes place in a much wider context than
just the Olympics. In that sense, mega events are time-space compressions where
attractors become easily visible and identifiable, but attractors are not specifically
related to mega events. We should expect to find similar pockets of sustainability
ordering beyond the mega event in China, be it with less dramatic effects in such
short time intervals.
Let us put the notion of attractors in perspective. With the idea of sustainability as
a global attractor, I claim neither that environmental sustainability is becoming the
global standard nor that we are on an evolutionary path to full sustainability
everywhere. Look outside the window and the world is still full of unsustainabilities
of various kinds. That certainly applies to contemporary China, including Beijing:
most levels of pollution, resource use and even standards are still well above what
environmental NGOs, international organizations and even Chinese environmental
authorities would consider sustainable. Draconian, one-time measures had to be taken
to get air quality acceptable during the weeks of Beijing’s Olympic Games. In
addition, there remain different interpretations, definitions and uses of the notion of
sustainability according to time, place and interests. There is – and continues to be –
debate and conflict on what sustainability means, what dimensions should be in and
not, which time line should be chosen, and what geography should be assessed. For
instance, with respect to Beijing, can we have sustainability with the rigorous
© 2010 The Author(s) 525Arthur P. J. Mol
demolition of entire city neighbourhoods for the Olympic City? Is it possible with the
large inflow of natural resources from other places such as Africa, and with strict
media control of environmental reporting (Broudehoux 2007; Gang 2009; Mol
9
2009)? Even if we limit sustainability to environmental sustainability, as I have done
in this article, large differences in practices of (un)sustainability remain throughout
the world. The strength of the global attractor metaphor is that global pockets of
ordering and directionality of legitimate developments move towards environmental
sustainability. In a complex world, the attractor notion brings quite diverse develop-
ments and dynamics in global and local networks and flows together in their
commonality of restructuring socio-material systems in a particular direction. Such
directionality of sustainability can no longer be denied either by social scientists or by
the practitioners of mega events.
Notes
1. In 1993 Beijing was leading in the first three rounds of voting over the other candidates
(Sydney, Manchester, Berlin and Istanbul), but in the fourth and final round Sydney gained
a very small majority of the votes of IOC members. In 2001 Beijing needed only two voting
rounds to beat Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka for the 29th Olympic Games (Close et al.
2007; Games Bids 2008).
2. This resulted in a public awareness award for BOCOG, received from the Secretariat of the
Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in September 2007. Greenpeace
noted that Beijing replaced these ozone-depleting substances in refrigerating systems for
HFCs, which are strong greenhouse gases, instead of leapfrogging to natural refrigeration
(Zhang 2008).
3. Some critics accused the Beijing municipality of providing only average data for its
23 monitoring stations, and not the site-specific ones (at the Olympic area). Others
accused the authorities of moving the monitoring stations out of the most polluted
areas, causing environmental improvements in monitoring data (http://globalisation-and-
the-environment.blogspot.com/2008/01/blue-skys-over-beijing.html; Gang 2009: 88-102).
Beijing EPB authorities denied the allegation (http://chinadaily.cn/olympics/2008-02/27/
content_6490345.htm). NASA satellite data seem to confirm air quality improvements
(UNEP 2009: 32ff).
4. From 20 July 2008 onwards, a driving ban was imposed on half of the three million
registered cars as an emergency measures. In addition, most construction in Beijing
stopped. Over 150 companies in Beijing and in neighbouring province of Hebei – and
Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shandong provinces – closed temporarily from two weeks
before the Olympics started until the end of the Paralympics. A tropical storm that hit
southeastern China on 28 July brought strong wind, some rain, lower temperatures and
cleared the skies just before the Olympics started, helped a little by launching more than
1000 rockets with artificial weather modification and control chemicals.
5. Greenpeace China set up a liaison with BOCOG and developed a campaign to offset CO2
emissions that the athletes caused by flying to Beijing. Future Generations/China organized,
together with the Beijing Forestry University, a Green Long March in 2007 to raise awareness
of the environment (www.worldwatch.org/node/5133; www.Greenpeace.org/china).
6. The nine-page document ‘A guide to Chinese law for foreigners coming to, leaving or
staying in China during the Olympics’, issued in early June 2008, contained no specific
environmental topics among the 57 rules on how foreign Olympic watchers should behave.
Of the 77 official requests for demonstrations during the Olympics, none was granted by
526 © 2010 The Author(s)Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
the Beijing authorities (although 74 were claimed to be ‘solved by consensus’). Several
protesters were expelled from the country or gaoled for a few days, but no environmental
campaigners were among them.
7. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games Organizing Committee (BOCOG) were among the winners of the 2009 IOC Award
for Sport and the Environment.
8. In July 2007 the Beijing official sponsors (including Coca-Cola, Kodak, VISA,
Panasonic, John Hancock, Samsung, McDonald’s, Swatch, Sema and General Electric)
formed a non-permanent environmental working body, to provide BOCOG and the
sponsors a platform for environmental cooperation. (http://en.beijing2008.cn/bocog/
environment/sports/n214118338.shtml) Coca-Cola only used CO2 refrigeration, Haier
promoted and introduced HFC-free air conditioners (in contrast to McDonald’s), and
Samsung’s official Olympic consumer phone was free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and
brominated flame retardants (in contrast to computers of Lenovo and electronic equipment
of Panasonic, two other sponsors (Zhang 2008)).
9. Just before the Olympics, Chinese authorities discovered that 22 food companies had
illegally put melamine (a toxic chemical used in industrial production processes) in
baby milk powder and other milk products. However, the news was kept quiet until an
anonymous weblogger in China disclosed it after the Paralympics. By early December
2008 the Chinese authorities had reported that 300,000 babies and young children were
hospitalized or treated in clinics, and at least six babies died following this food
scandal.
References
Andranovich, G., M. Burbank and C. Heying (2001) ‘Olympic cities: lessons learnt from mega-
event politics’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 23 (2), 113–31.
BEPB (Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau) (2009) Beijing environmental quality
bulletin, Beijing: BEPB (in Chinese).
BOCOG (2008) ‘Beijing 2008’, http://en.beijing2008.com (accessed June 2008).
Broudehoux, A.-M. (2007) ‘Spectacular Beijing: the conspicuous construction on an Olympic
metropolis’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 29 (4) 383–99.
Cantelon, H. and M. Letters (2000) ‘The making of the IOC environmental policy as the third
dimension of the Olympic movement’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35
(3), 294–308.
Carter, N. T. and A. P. J. Mol (2006) ‘China and the environment: domestic and transnational
dynamics of a future hegemon’, Environmental Politics, 15 (2), 331–45.
Carter, N. T. and A. P. J. Mol (eds) (2007) Environmental governance in China, London:
Routledge.
Close, P., D. Askew and Xu Xin (2007) The Beijing Olympiad: the political economy of a
sporting mega-event, London: Routledge.
Del Corpo, B. and E. Dansero (2007) ‘Torino 2006: environment, challenges and conflicts in a
contended place’, paper presented at the European Sociological Association Conference,
Glasgow 3–6 September.
Folke, C., T. Hahn, P. Olsson and J. Norberg (2005) ‘Adaptive governance of social-ecological
systems’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 30, 441–73.
Games Bids (2008) ‘Past host city election results’, at: http://www.gamesbids.com (accessed
January 2010).
Gang, C. (2009) Politics of China’s environmental protection: problems and progress,
Singapore: World Scientific.
Gilbert, N. (1995) ‘Emergence in social simulation’, in N. Gilbert and R. Conte (eds) Artificial
societies, London: UCL Press, 144–56.
© 2010 The Author(s) 527You can also read
