Last week, the City of Cape 
 Town launched the Green 
 Goal progress report, a document that highlights the effort made by government to ensure that the 2010 FIFA World Cup is an environ-mentally responsible event and leaves a positive environmental legacy in the region.

The progress report docu-ments the implementation and progress of the 2010 Green Goal 
programme following the launch 
of the Green Goal Action Plan on October 17, 2008.

The report is the product of 
cooperation between the pro-vincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town and was made pos-
sible with the support of German foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS).

The report indicates that a total of 41 projects have been identified by the Host City Green Goal Action Plan across nine target areas to achieve the aims of the 2010 greening programme.

The nine target areas include
energy and climate change, water, integrated waste management, transport, land-scaping and biodiversity, green building and sustainable lifestyles, responsible tourism, green goal communications, and monitoring and reporting.

According to KAS resident representative Dr Werner Bohler, these target areas are crucial for the hosting of an environment-friendly World Cup.

The focus of these target areas aim to decrease the carbon footprint of the 2010 event; lessen the use of potable water and promote water conservation; reduce, reuse and recycle waste; promote energy efficient and universally accessible mobility and lessen air pollution; enhance biodiversity; promote environmental awareness and efficient building practices; promote responsible tourism; and to monitor and report on progress of the implementation of the Green Goal.

More than 80% of the 41 Green Goal projects have started, with the remaining projects in final planning 
stages. 
The majority of these projects focus on the promotion of environmental awareness, sustainable lifestyles and environmentally efficient building practices, as well as the communication of the message of the Green Goal to residents and visitors.

The Progress Report provides an insight into the status quo of the 41 Green Goal projects and shares the success stories but also highlights obstacles, some of a financial nature, that still need to be overcome.

City of Cape Town executive mayor Dan Plato elaborated that the Green Goal progress report indicates that the city is succeeding in the twin aims of the programme of mitigating any negative impacts on the environment and leaving a positive environmental legacy.

According to Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille, the Green Goal initiative has been necessitated by the fact that the World Cup event will have a significantly negative impact on South Africa’s environment.

The national carbon footprint of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is 
estimated to be more than 
850 000 t, which will be eight times more than the carbon footprint of Germany’s World Cup in 2006.

This excludes the 1,85-million tons of carbon dioxide contrib-uted by international travel, as South Africa is a long-haul destination for most tourists.

Host city Cape Town’s con-
tribution to the national foot-print is between 150 000 t and 180 000 t, or about 17%.

Zille elaborates that, as the cost of offsetting this carbon is 
between $6/t and $12/t, it will not be financially possible to offset all the carbon emissions and make the event carbon neutral.

“It is, therefore, clear that significant financial resources and support are needed for further mitigation projects if we are to make a more meaningful impact in reducing the carbon footprint,” says Zille.

The Green Goal progress report indicates that the City of Cape Town has committed over R6-million in direct funding for Green Goal 2010 projects.

This funding has leveraged an additional R8-million in grant funding for the 2010 FIFA World Cup-related greening initiatives in Cape Town and the rest of the Western Cape, states the report.

Indirect funding from the local, provincial and national 
governments for major infra-structure projects that support the Green Goal aims total about R1,9-billion.

However, in spite of this spend, there are still additional projects in the Green Goal 2010 Action Plan that are important and yet remain unfunded at present.

Thus, Zille has appealed to the Fifa family to contribute towards mitigating the event’s carbon footprint, as it did in Germany, as these carbon emissions affect the world as a whole.