BP and the greenest Olympic Games ever?

Miriam Ross, media officer

The World Development Movement has signed an open letter sent today to the organisers of London 2012, asking them to reconsider the games’ sponsorship deal with BP.

The Olympic chiefs’ claim that this summer’s games will be the ‘greenest ever’ has already taken a serious battering, not least over sponsorship by Dow, the company behind the Bhopal disaster. Dow’s involvement in the games prompted the resignation of one the games’ sustainability commissioners last month.

BP has been selected as ‘Sustainability Partner’ for the games, despite being, as the letter points out, ‘one of the least sustainable companies on earth’. The list of the company’s environmental and human rights crimes is a long one, including the Deepwater Horizon disaster and formerly close relationships with the Mubarak regime in Egypt and the Gaddafi regime in Libya.

Now BP plans to enter the highly polluting Canadian tar sands, despite calls from local indigenous communities in Alberta for a halt to tar sands extraction projects. The World Development Movement has also been highlighting the role of bailed-out bank RBS in using taxpayers’ money to fund tar sands extraction.

As Jess Worth from the UK Tar Sands Network says:

The choice of BP as Sustainability Partner for the London 2012 Olympics sounds like a sick joke, considering its record of environmental devastation around the world. There’s clearly an urgent need for the Olympics organisers to broaden their definition of ‘sustainability’ and start applying it to their choice of sponsor."

The EU is scheduled to vote next week on the Fuel Quality Directive, legislation that would effectively ban tar sands from European import. The UK government is refusing to support the proposed ban. Please email UK ministers Norman Baker and Nick Clegg through People and Planet’s website, demanding they support the ban.