Robin Ketlinski

Environmental sustainability was a central component to planning Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympics. The organizing committee’s sustainability concept of “Be better, together: For the planet and the people” encompassed five major areas of focus ranging from climate change to human rights (guided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals). While sustainability was rhetorically emphasized throughout the bidding and planning processes, from the onset the event was also fraught with environmental controversies ranging from nuclear fallout in nearby Fukushima to unethically sourced timber used in constructing the new main stadium. Environmental concerns and broader socio-economic unease in Japan led a small but vocal group of protesters to oppose Tokyo’s hosting of the Games from day one. When the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Olympics in March 2020, the chorus of dissenters became larger and louder. The absence of fans in enormous Olympic stadiums and the void of international visitors at the Summer Games in Tokyo in 2021 exposed in an unprecedented fashion the many excesses of the Olympics. This presentation will explore how the shift in focus away from sustainability (and onto public health and safety) left Olympic sustainability initiatives in Tokyo in limbo and called into question broader environmental concerns posed by sports mega-events.