Question: how did london compare to other cities in terms of sustainability?

Nicola Lazenby answered on 18 Mar 2013:

London was incredible!! We were head a shoulders above the Chinese in terms of sustainability for the Olympics!

London transformed waste land into a usable space, not only for the Olympics but for many years to come! It identified the needs of the community AFTER the games, and designed for those. So it made permanent venues – the stadium, velodrome and aquatics centre as they knew there was a need for this after the games. What wasn’t required in the area was a basketball arena, hockey pitches and waterpolo venue, therefore they made these temporary venues! The Basketball arena is being packed up and sent to Rio for the next Summer Olympics! They also realised that a stadium of that capacity would struggle to be filled post games – therefore they built into the design how they were going to reduce the seat after the games! In contrast many of the venues in China are now stood empty, vandalised and damaged – this is a massive waste of money as well as resources for the country!

In building the venues for London, they tried to reuse as much of the material that was on site to prevent them from going to landfills, they also recycled as much of the waste from the site either by giving it to the local community to use for another use (an example is giving some form work from the concrete works to a rabbit charity to use in the gardens to create an interesting play area for the homeless bunny’s!)