Environmental Analysis for International Marathon Event based on the Life Cycle Perspectives

Objective. Interests in the assessment for events are increasing rapidly. Environmental Impacts caused by several events like sports tournaments; music festivals and international conferences have already been assessed. The publications of these results contribute to promote the reduction of CO₂ emission. Through these activities, various problems with regard to the assessment, especially the following problems have been raised.<BR> > Quickness of analysis: Hopefully, the temporary result should be presented on the day of the event in order to promote environmental communication.<BR> > Comprehensiveness of analysis: The scope of LCA should cover as far as possible in order to avoid underestimate the result. Some of big events include thousands items.<BR> We assessed Tokyo marathon 2008 using hybrid LCA applying CO₂ intensities obtained by input-output method and process method. More than 2000 items were covered. Transportation, accommodation, food, advertisement, security, management, measurement, entry, waste management and office were included in the scope of this study.<BR>Results and Discussion. The total amount of CO₂ emission including direct and indirect emissions was calculated as 5,000 ton. The environmental burdens of transportation occupied a half of total amounts. The contribution of air plane used by participants from foreign countries was estimated high, although the number of these people was less than 5% of total. The emission caused by equipments such as the stands, temporary lavatory and fence used in the starting point, the effects of finish point and the marathon course were also estimated high. The CO₂ emission caused by commemorative products like T-shirt and medals given to runners were also important, because a number of products had to be produced. Environmental burdens related to services like rental, volunteers, guard were also high. The effects of activities for environment implemented by organizer were assessed. These results will be used to reduce CO₂ emission in the next time.<BR>Conclusions. LCA for large-scale sports event was carried out using hybrid approach. This approach enabled us to obtain the calculated result quickly. Temporary result was released to the public on the day of the event. Final result was obtained after the fixed data were provided to the practitioners. Through this process, it became possible to share environmental information among various stakeholders like runner, organizer, and audience effectively.