Company to work on 2012 footprint

Building the stadium will account for half the carbon footprint, the firm says

A company from Oxford has been commissioned to predict the carbon footprint of the London 2012 Olympics.

Best Foot Forward, in Cowley, will calculate how much carbon the event could create and advise on how it might be offset.

Paul Cooper, managing director, said: "Now's the time that changes can be made in planning to reduce the impact."

Mr Cooper said his company would work with the Olympics team right up to 2012 to help reduce the carbon footprint.

You can't reduce it to zero for the Olympics because that would mean telling people not to come Paul Cooper Best Foot Forward managing director

"The Olympics has set broad boundaries by including spectator travel, athletes' travel and building the stadium when calculating its carbon footprint.

"Then you can see, for example, that half of the impact is about building the stadium.

"This can be reduced by changing the type of concrete used and other things.

"At the moment the broad total for the Olympics, including building the stadium, is 3.4 million tonnes.

"That's the carbon equivalent of 300,000 people [a year].

'Lot of interest'

"It sounds huge, but it's less than 1% of the UK economy.

"You can't reduce it to zero for the Olympics because that would mean telling people not to come."

Best Foot Forward was established in 1997.

"For the first 10 years we were in business people thought we were crazy, but for the last two or three there's been a lot of interest in this."

Mr Cooper said the average carbon footprint of a UK citizen was 12 tonnes per year.

About 30% is from heating, 30% from driving, 20% from flying and 20% from food and other sources, the company says.

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