Vancouver gets environmental Bronze: report

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - If protecting the environment was an Olympic sport, the organizing committee for the Vancouver Winter Games, to be held later this month, would have won a bronze medal, a report released on Wednesday says.

Organizers have done a good job in areas such as building energy-efficient sports venues, but have fallen short in other areas such as offsetting the carbon emissions produced by Games-related transportation, according to the David Suzuki Foundation, a leading Canadian environmental group.

"The fate of winter sports, and the potential to host Winter Olympics in the future, depend on choices we make today to address climate change," the Suzuki foundation said.

The report found fault with the International Olympic Committee, saying that while it promotes the idea of protecting the environment, it does little to make sure local organizers follow-up on their promises to do so.

"Tellingly, most people aren't even aware that environment is one of the three official pillars of the Olympic movement," the Suzuki foundation, which has been working with Vancouver organizers to monitor their environmental performance, said.

Vancouver, on Canada's Pacific Coast, made a series of environmental commitments when it was awarded the Winter Games, which begin February 12, and the report said the event will likely be remembered as being environmentally friendly overall.

Among the most lofty goals set by organizers was to attempt to make the event carbon neutral, offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions generated by building venues and transporting athletes to Vancouver.

Vancouver has done a better job on cutting emissions than past Winter Olympics hosts, but it has not addressed the biggest source of Games-related emissions, those produced by spectators, the foundation said.

"Without offsetting spectator air travel, which accounts for about half of the climate impact of the Vancouver Olympics... the Vancouver Olympics cannot make an unqualified claim to be carbon neutral," the authors said.

The report was also prepared before organizers began trucking large amounts of snow to a mountain venue near Vancouver that has been struggling with unseasonably warm temperatures since the beginning of the year.

The Suzuki Foundation praised some of the technology being used at venues, such as a system that recaptures heat from the sewage system at the newly built Vancouver athletes' village.

The report called on the IOC to create an external monitoring system to oversee the environmental performance of host cities, such as London, which is preparing for the 2012 Summer Games.