Promoting Rio Olympic Games Supply Chain Sustainability

In summer 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil hosted South America’s first Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will have a major impact, socially, economically and environmentally. In April 2010, the Brazilian Olympic Confederations, the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee formed the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG), a private, not-for-profit sports association. As part of its work, OCOG was charged with ensuring the successful delivery of the games.  In preparation for the Games, the Sustainability, Accessibility and Legacy Team (SAL) of OCOG has taken on the challenge to adopt and disseminate sustainable practices to create a permanent legacy for the Olympics.

SAL was given a unique opportunity to promote sustainability for the Olympic Games with visible impacts across the pillars of People, Planet and Prosperity. Over the course of the 2016 Olympics, SAL identified 230 projects to create actionable items and results for promoting supply chain sustainability, as well as unique projects in education and sustainable tourism. These projects and experiences helped create transferrable assets, such as databases, manuals and frameworks, which were taken by entities across the public and private domains and replicated in their internal processes. In addition, this entire experience presented an exemplary benchmark for global sustainable practices for future dissemination.

Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) Capstone team was tasked with two objectives: (1) to analyze SAL’s effectiveness in incorporating sustainability into the Olympic Games, which included evaluating SAL’s supply chain procurement process, educational programs and tourism initiatives, and (2) to recommend a strategic transfer plan to disseminate SAL’s sustainability practices for future use by key stakeholders.