Commonwealth Games ‘will cross the green finishing line’

Plans for next summer’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to be carbon neutral for the first time are a winner, says a Midlands green energy expert.

It’s an historic moment for sport and ensures a positive environmental legacy is left for future generations,” said Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd.

About 4,500 athletes are expected to travel to the Games to be held between July 28 and August 8, 2022, which will be the biggest sporting event ever for the Commonwealth.

Ambitious ideas for the international jamboree, which will feature 286 sessions, 19 sports and 283 medal events across 11 days, include:

• Creating 72 new urban forests, each one the size of a tennis court to bring nature into city centre sites across the West Midlands. Each woodland site will be linked to one of the competing nations and territories.
• Planting another 2,022 acres of forest with native species to help local people connect with the outdoors.
• Cutting back on plastic waste such as single-use bottles by providing free water so spectators can bring their own reusable containers.
• Reducing travel and carbon emissions by putting some athletes near their training and competition sites.
• Ensuring it is a public transport games by providing incentives to use buses, trains and trams and discouraging people to come in their cars. 
• Supplying cleaner environmental buses and developing a car fleet containing hybrid and electric vehicles to transport officials and athletes around the sites.
• Using cleaner, more efficient generators.

With fewer than 500 days until the event starts, organisers are being helped by Severn Trent who will become the Official Nature and Carbon-Neutral Supporter of Birmingham 2022 and will ensure the games will be carbon neutral. 

Although it is too early to say whether the Commonwealth Games will definitely go ahead because of the coronavirus, it could be the first and biggest sporting occasion after lockdown if this summer’s Olympic Games in Japan from Friday, July 23 to Sunday, August 8 have to be cancelled again.

Presuming the Midlands event happens next summer it is expected to provide up to 30,000 jobs as well as many volunteer roles. It would be crucial in helping the post-pandemic recovery in the region where an estimated 100,000 jobs have been lost since March 2020.

“I really hope the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham go ahead and are a great success,” said Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science and Innovation Park. “It could make our country a global leader in showing other countries how to stage international sport in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.”

For more details about green energy and helping homes to be carbon neutral, call Ron on 01782 756995.

Caption: Sign of hope – the official logo for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the West Midlands.