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A blueprint for change? : exploring how the London organizing committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) framed Olympic 'sustainability partner' BP

University of British Columbia

The London Organizing Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) came under substantial public scrutiny regarding several of its corporate partnerships (Gibson, 2012; Smedley, 2012). Specifically, a number of resistance groups mobilized around LOCOG’s selection of BP (formerly British Petroleum) as a ‘sustainability partner’. In pledging to host the first ‘truly sustainable Games’, this partnership appeared paradoxical to some, as BP has a history marred by environmental degradation and disaster – most notably the Deep Water Horizon oil spill of 2010 (National Commission, 2011; World Wildlife Foundation, 2007; Mattera, 2010). This thesis critically examines how LOCOG framed the BP-LOCOG relationship – focusing specifically on how the Games’ organizing committee promoted certain interpretations of ‘sustainability’ through this partnership. By examining numerous public relations texts produced by LOCOG, I show how the organizing committee framed BP as not only a ‘key partner’, but also as an ‘expert and motivator’ around sustainability – and suggest that the ‘specialty’ designations awarded to BP facilitated these framings. Further, I argue that a number of explicit and underlying assumptions were revealed in LOCOG’s justifications and framing of this partnership. These include: a) collaboration is a key strategy for dealing with environmental problems, b) innovation comes from business and is a key solution to environmental problems, c) growth and sustainability are compatible, and d) ‘the Games must go on’ despite environmental consequences. I then discuss potential problems with these seemingly innocuous assumptions and framings – concentrating especially on how particular responses to environmental problems are presented as the ‘only’ responses. This thesis concludes with reflections on the study’s contributions to the area of sport mega-events and the environment. Particular attention is paid to the value of studying the public relations strategies of Games’ organizing committees, deconstructing the role of partnerships in the framing of a sustainable Olympics, and investigating the way that consensus around particular responses to environmental issues is sought through responsive PR practices.

Text

2016-08-16

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58791

Kinesiology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/