Sustainable land use and green ecology: A case from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics venue legacy

Abstract

According to the Olympic Charter, the construction of new permanent venues or infrastructure for the purposes of the organization of the Olympics shall only be considered on the basis of sustainable legacy plans. However, as time passes, the Olympic legacies grow increasingly unsustainable and create conflicts between humans and nature. This perspective examined the spatial distribution of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics venue legacy. We presented a spatial assessment of Olympic venues’ legacy experience in terms of construction and sustainability. The findings indicate that the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics venues incorporated sustainable land management and green ecology concepts from the Olympic Movement, and that the legacy could serve as an example for future development of Olympic infrastructure, natural sites, and resource management.

Transforming “white elephants” into positive legacies for cities: An assessment of the sustainability of winter Olympic venues and its implications

“…Especially, for the Winter Olympic Games, the venues are mostly constructed in outdoor natural areas which are far from the urban regions. Human activities like land exploitation, the construction of infrastructures and ski courses, and the making of artificial snow pose higher risks to local ecology and biodiversity (Huang et al, 2019; Song et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2023). Chappelet (2021) argues that resolving conflicts between winter Olympic venues and ecologically sensitive land use is imperative for the sustainability of the Olympic Movement.…”

“…A lot of attention has been paid to the research of sustainable mega‐sports venues and sports stadiums as part of the event legacies, and environmental sustainability is the most frequently discussed aspect. The negative environmental impact of large sports venues after the event is widely investigated and the design and construction methods to improve their environmental sustainability are put forward (Glebova et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2023). There is still research that considers venue sustainability from a holistic perspective and defines sustainable venues as the ones that meet the public's environmental, social and economic interests (Bunds et al, 2019; Yüce et al, 2021).…”

“…Due to the large scale and variety of races, the investments in sports venues are prohibitively high, bringing a huge financial burden for the hosts while failing to provide long-term economic benefits (Azzali, 2019;Francis et al, 2023;Lee, 2019). The construction of large venues also causes pollution, huge GHG emissions, and ecological damage (Chappelet, 2008;Francis et al, 2023;Wang et al, 2023). All these led to the Games as a "one-off" event and a continuous decline in the number of cities bidding for the Olympics can be seen since the 20th century (Chappelet, 2021;McBride & Manno, 2021).…”

Systematic evaluation of integration between China’s digital economy and sports industry: Two-stage grey relational analysis and vector autoregressive model

“…Additionally, the implementation of the National Fitness Plan has accelerated the demand for public sports facilities [ 1 ]. Throughout this process, the Chinese government has integrated a range of digital technologies to address the issue of carbon emissions, environmental protection, and meet the increasing demands for sports facilities [ 43 ]. Other newly constructed stadiums and associated facilities, which have been financed by private entities [ 44 ], also have state-of-the-art digital infrastructure to fulfill the future demands of mega events.…”