How Green are the 2022 World Cup Venues Set to Be？ | Sep 30th, 2020
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 | Official Emblem revealed by FIFATV
• Held once every four years, the FIFA World Cup is one of the biggest events on Earth […] To handle this growing popularity, FIFA requires World Cup host countries to have at least 12 stadiums that can support between 40,000 and 80,000 spectators. This mandate calls for heavy new infrastructure development, with host countries investing billions of dollars into new construction to meet this standard.
• As the first sporting organization to sign onto the UN’s Climate Neutral Now initiative, FIFA is dedicated to reducing the World Cup’s environmental footprint. To rise to this challenge, the 2022 World Cup host country of Qatar has launched a new framework of green building initiatives.
• Challenges to Constructing Sustainable Venues: Raw material sourcing and selection, On-site construction, architecture and design efficiency
• Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy has revealed its plans to overcome these challenges. All eight of its new World Cup stadiums are on track to achieve at least a 4-star certification from the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) for design and build, and construction management.
- The sheer number of abandoned sporting venues around the world indicate just how wasteful unsustainable planning can be. By employing prefabricated and reusable elements, Qatar is ensuring sustainable use of these materials even after the tournament ends.This project also shows how scalable green building innovations can be, and how the impacts can be both environmentally-friendly and cost-effective.
Held once every four years, the FIFA World Cup is one of the biggest events on Earth. In 2018 more than half the world — a record 3.57 billion people — watched the tournament, with millions more traveling to catch the games live.
To handle this growing popularity, FIFA requires World Cup host countries to have at least 12 stadiums that can support between 40,000 and 80,000 spectators. This mandate calls for heavy new infrastructure development, with host countries investing billions of dollars into new construction to meet this standard.
All that construction takes its toll on the environment. A UNEP report shows the construction sector contributes to 39 percent of carbon emissions annually. Not only that, but after the end of these tournaments, most of this brand new infrastructure is abandoned and falls into disrepair.
The future of FIFA, however, is looking greener than ever, with big plans in the works to put sustainability at the heart of all new venue design projects going forward.
Will the 2022 World Cup Be Greener?
As the first sporting organization to sign onto the UN’s Climate Neutral Now initiative, FIFA is dedicated to reducing the World Cup’s environmental footprint. To rise to this challenge, the 2022 World Cup host country of Qatar has launched a new framework of green building initiatives.
This model stands to not only establish a new industry standard — it’s been officially endorsed by FIFA as the benchmark for all future tournaments — but prove how effective and replicable sustainable design can be at any scale.
Challenges to Constructing Sustainable Venues
The new 2022 FIFA World Cup venue plan uses cradle-to-grave strategizing to overcome traditional challenges to sustainable design. These are a few of the biggest issues developers encounter throughout the planning, construction, and post-event phases, especially for major sporting events like these.
Raw material sourcing and selection
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), construction activities consume half of all resources extracted from nature. Developing raw materials like cement, aluminum, and steel generates millions of tons of waste and emissions annually.
Given the short life cycle of stadiums, this raw material often ends up going to waste.
On-site construction
Based on a 2017 EPA report, the construction industry contributes to 23 percent of air pollution, 50 percent of climatic change, 40 percent of drinking water pollution, and 50 percent of landfill waste. Much of this pollution is linked to the building activity itself, like chemical usage and uncontrolled dust.
In addition, without intentional sustainability planning, large-scale construction like stadiums can significantly change the landscape and harm surrounding ecosystems.
Architecture and design efficiency
Stadium projects often fail to adequately integrate with existing infrastructure like public transport, and plans disregard environmental factors of a site location — in particular, the natural resource alternatives available. This can lead to inefficient operations generating a higher amount of waste material and emissions.
Qatar’s Green Showcase
Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy has revealed its plans to overcome these challenges. All eight of its new World Cup stadiums are on track to achieve at least a 4-star certification from the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) for design and build, and construction management.
Endorsed by FIFA, this internationally-recognized standard will be the mandate for all future World Cup construction, extending Qatar’s sustainable legacy far beyond the 2022 tournament.
Limited raw material use
The 2022 FIFA World Cup is bringing the adage “reduce, reuse, recycle” to a whole new level. The Ras Abu Aboud Stadium, for example, is being constructed entirely out of prefabricated and modular elements like shipping containers, reducing raw material use, waste generated during production and construction, and the time spent on the construction process.
By using these prefabricated materials, the stadium can also be entirely dismantled following the tournament. This helps avoid the problem of massive, abandoned structures characteristic to large-scale events like the Olympics and the World Cup.
The design is not just intended as a guide for future development, but also a continuing source of reusable materials. Qatar plans to pass these modular materials forward, making it more affordable and sustainable for countries around the world to host cultural and sporting events.
What little raw material is used in Qatar’s stadiums is coming from close to home, as well. At the Education City Stadium, a whopping 85 percent of the building materials have been regionally sourced. About 55 percent of that material is sourced locally and 29 percent is pulled right from recycled content. This recycled material is almost entirely repurposed from older local buildings.
Reducing construction pollution
Qatar has implemented simple yet innovative measures to control dust pollution. This includes using green plastic netting to cover excavated materials, covering trucks to prevent dispersion during transport, and trading in road sweepers for vehicle washouts powered by re-circulated water.
The project’s limited use of raw material also minimizes the impacts of harmful construction chemicals.
Sustainable design
Qatar’s stadiums champion passive design — a style of architecture that intentionally accounts for natural effects like sunlight, wind, and vegetation. Consideration of these features help to maximize stadium energy use. Insulating fabric is employed for shading and the stadium shape shades from the sun, allows for wind ventilation, and increases the efficiency of auxiliary cooling systems.
Low-flow water fixtures installed in these stadiums allow water use that’s 55 percent more efficient than conventional counterparts. Drought-tolerant flora and fauna are being used for landscaping design to further limit water usage, with irrigation systems put in place to sustainably manage any remaining landscaping needs.
The stadiums are also using LED lighting systems with automatic controls, along with demand-controlled ventilation systems, e-glazed windows, and high resistance insulating materials.
Building a Sustainable Legacy
The sheer number of abandoned sporting venues around the world indicate just how wasteful unsustainable planning can be. By employing prefabricated and reusable elements, Qatar is ensuring sustainable use of these materials even after the tournament ends.
This project also shows how scalable green building innovations can be, and how the impacts can be both environmentally-friendly and cost-effective. Whether it’s a personal residence or major city planning project, these sustainable construction strategies are cheaper to sustain and manage in the long run, resulting in lower water, energy, maintenance, and insurance costs.
Going Greener with Miniwiz
Even if you’re not building a 40,000-person arena, these sustainable strategies can vastly improve the cost-benefit of any project while meeting high-level green goals.
At Miniwiz, we’ve incorporated 15 years of research and development into long-life-cycle building and construction projects. From real estate developers to architecture firms and consumer brands, Miniwiz transforms design projects of all size and scope to meet these sustainability standards.
Our “House of Trash” in Milan, for example, was built with 100 percent recycled waste. The Miniwiz “Trashpresso” has helped encourage sustainable design in projects from London to Shanghai, and we have offered go-green consulting for leading companies like McDonald’s, Nike, Philip Morris, and Prada.
Whether you’re looking at large-scale sustainability projects like those in Qatar, or you’re searching for green options for acoustics, insulation, or infrastructure, we have solutions. Get in touch to see how your projects can use the latest zero-waste innovations and green technology to exceed industry standards and cut your costs in the long run.
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