The next Winter Olympics, hosted by Turin, Italy, in February 2006, will take place under the banner of sustainability, and will be committed to environmental protection. It will be the first public sporting event to apply the environmental management criteria laid down in the international standard, ISO14000.

TOROC (the Turin Organizing Committee) and UNEP will seek to reduce the environmental impact of the increase in traffic and waste, through long-term planning and continual monitoring on the ground. They also have a 'green' purchasing policy, selecting products carrying the eco-label.

More generally, Turin is determined to demonstrate its solemn commitment to ensuring adherence to these criteria. In this way it will show the importance of taking the issue extremely seriously and will set an environmental precedent for future
Olympic events.

Beijing has already begun a massive clean-up for the 2008 Games. It has launched a five-year pollution control plan. This involves developing its public transport system, controlling emissions from vehicles and promoting environmentally friendly ones, building natural gas transfer projects and cracking down on polluting businesses. Industries must clean up or be relocated out of town. Since 1998, 147 of them have been removed in this way, or shut down.

The Chinese Government has pledged the massive sum of $17.9 billion to make the city's environment and infrastructure fit to host the Olympics. Of this, $6.6 billion will be used specifically for protecting the environment and developing clean energy sources.

Besides protecting existing natural environments, Beijing will also create many more. It plans to cover 23,000 hectares of the city with newly planted trees, mainly along waterways and highways. Green spaces are planned for another 12,500 hectares, and will include a second 'green belt' around the city.
Air quality in the city is still poor. Too much coal is burned and there are too many cars on the roads. But the improvements are significant, not least because other cities want to join in.

The city of Tianjin, for example, has included itself in the developments as part of a common 'Beijing-Tianjin Ecological Zone'. It reminds us that 'air and water do not recognize administrative boundaries', thus extending the environmental challenge to the whole country - and the world.