Designing sustainable sports venues — what works & what doesn’t

Sustainability is now the default headline promise for most major sporting events. The same themes come up each time: reuse venues, reduce new build, embrace circular economy principles and leave a meaningful legacy — yet the gap between ambition and delivery remains a recurring risk for organisers, developers and public bodies.

The Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina 2026 was positioned around reuse, clean energy and lower‑carbon mobility, with the IOC pointing to a high proportion of existing or temporary venues and a transport approach prioritising trains and shuttles. Meanwhile, the post‑Games story of London 2012’s Olympic Stadium shows how ‘legacy reuse’ can still create controversy and recurring carbon and cost if conversion complexity and operational incentives aren’t properly designed into the deal. 

The common thread is that sustainability outcomes are decided less by press releases and more by the brief, procurement, how the venue operates and what happens at end‑of‑life. 

Here, Georgina Rothwell and Elspeth Christie explore how those promises translate into real‑world delivery and outline the practical factors that determine whether sustainability is actually achieved.

What ‘sustainability’ should mean on sports infrastructure projects

From a project perspective, sustainability isn’t a single feature but the cumulative sum of whole‑life decisions. This can be through embodied carbon in construction, overlays and temporary works, transport and logistics, operational energy and maintenance and end‑of‑life outcomes such as reuse, repurposing and recycling. 

This is why ‘temporary’ doesn’t automatically equate to ‘lower carbon’. While temporary solutions can reduce permanent materials, they can also introduce logistics including installation, removal, storage and transportation. Over an asset’s life, these recurring inputs can erode or outweigh the headline carbon savings. 

Temporary & modular venues: the promise & reality check

While modular and demountable venues are often presented as the antidote to sustainability concerns, the real‑world outcomes are more complicated.

Stadium 974

Qatar’s Stadium 974 became an emblem of modular design, built from shipping containers and modular steel components and promoted as a venue that could be dismantled and repurposed after the 2022 FIFA World Cup. While early reports suggested initial post‑tournament de‑rigging had begun, the stadium is yet to be fully dismantled and hasn’t been relocated as originally envisaged.

Sustainability outcomes depend not only on design intent but on when, where and how reuse actually occurs. If dismantling and reuse don’t happen, the benefit becomes harder to evidence and the reputational risk can be as damaging as the embodied carbon. Stakeholders may view the re-use narrative as a tick-box exercise unless it’s backed by a credible, funded, contractually enforceable end-of-life pathway.

Milano Cortina 2026 

Milano Cortina 2026 was presented as an Olympic Games designed around existing infrastructure, with the IOC emphasising that roughly 85% of the competition’s venues were existing or temporary, alongside renewable electricity powering most venues and a mobility plan prioritising trains and shuttles.

That model reflects an important market shift: organisers are increasingly choosing distributed, reuse‑heavy approaches to reduce new build and — in theory — avoid creating underutilised assets after the event. However, as with modular venues, ‘reuse’ should be tested in the detail. It can reduce the embodied carbon of new builds yet still require substantial temporary overlay works, complex logistics and intensive operational inputs depending on the sport and climate realities. 

If the sustainability story rests on reuse and temporary solutions, you need procurement‑grade clarity on what those temporary elements entail, including materials, transport, storage, programme and de‑rigging.

London 2012’s Olympic Stadium

The most enduring ‘sustainability vs reality’ lesson is what happened with the main Olympic Stadium (now the ‘London Stadium’), a world‑class athletics venue that still needed a commercially viable future. In 2013, a deal was announced confirming West Ham United as the long‑term anchor tenant under a 99‑year lease commencing in 2016, with transformation works including a new roof and retractable seating to accommodate football, athletics and other events. 

Reported conversion costs exceeded £300m. Ongoing operational requirements include installing temporary seating closer to the pitch for football then removing it for athletics or concert use, with corresponding programme disruption and cost. Where a venue is designed to switch between modes, conversion isn’t a marginal issue — it’s a core operational workstream with real carbon, cost, programme and reputational consequences.

Controversy has also focused on the allocation of costs and revenues. Where one party captures much of the commercial upside, public bodies retain significant operating and changeover burdens. That issue has resurfaced in light of West Ham’s relegation, with reports suggesting that the drop into the Championship could cost London taxpayers up to £2.5m a year in reduced rent, lower commercial income and higher matchday operating costs. More than a decade on from the Games, that continuing debate is a reminder that legacy isn’t judged only by whether a venue remains in use but by whether the long-term model is financially and operationally sustainable in practice.

A contrasting model: Brighton & Hove Albion Women

Brighton & Hove Albion’s April 2026 announcement of plans for a women’s football-specific stadium points to a different infrastructure model. The proposal is for a purpose-built stadium dedicated exclusively to women’s professional football, alongside bespoke training and performance facilities designed specifically for female athletes. 

From a sustainability perspective, the significance lies less in headline environmental claims and more in long-term operational fit. A permanent venue aligned to demand, usage patterns and audience profile may reduce the need for repeated overlays, conversions or relocations that often carry hidden carbon and cost. As with any project, outcomes will still depend on procurement, materials and governance — but the approach reflects a wider shift in top-level women’s sport from adaptation of the men’s team’s facilities towards purpose-built legacy aligned with real-world use.

Greenwashing risk: where sustainability narratives overreach

As sustainability becomes central to how major events are marketed, there’s a corresponding increase in greenwashing risk where claims aren’t matched by delivery. 

Temporary and modular venues illustrate the issue most clearly. A design may be presented as ‘circular’ or ‘relocatable’ but the claimed environmental benefit depends entirely on whether dismantling, transport and reuse actually take place — and on what terms. If those outcomes aren’t underpinned by realistic programming, committed funding and clear contractual obligations, the sustainability case can become difficult to evidence.

This creates both regulatory and reputational exposure. Stakeholders including regulators, investors and the public are increasingly focused on whether sustainability claims are specific, verifiable and deliverable. Where there’s a disconnect between narrative and outcome, the risk isn’t just underperformance but potential allegations that sustainability has been overstated or misrepresented.

In practice, mitigating that risk comes back to the same fundamentals: aligning sustainability messaging with what’s contractually required, commercially viable and operationally deliverable. Where those elements aren’t aligned, sustainability can quickly shift from a selling point to a source of scrutiny.

What makes sustainability real in practice

Across Milano Cortina 2026, Stadium 974 and London 2012, the same conclusion keeps landing: sustainability is delivered or lost through procurement and the operating model, not through intent. 

Here are the most effective levers: 

1. Make whole‑life carbon a deliverable, not a narrative

Whole‑life carbon assessment and reporting should be defined deliverables at key gateways, using consistent methodologies and auditable inputs where proportionate. Measurable outcomes must feed into delivery, rather than sitting in standalone sustainability material.

2. If the concept relies on modularity, contract for the end‑of‑life pathway

Where being temporary or modular underpins the sustainability case, procurement should specify at minimum:

• A deconstruction plan, including scope, timetable and responsibilities.
• Storage and transport logistics, including who pays.
• Reuse and recycling targets.
• Verification of what happens to components afterwards.

Stadium 974 is the cautionary tale. Design intent and public narrative can diverge if the end‑of‑life pathway isn’t contractually locked in and commercially viable. 

3. Allocate mode‑switching risk upfront

Where venues must convert between configurations, conversion should be treated as an operational requirement with associated cost, carbon and programme impacts priced and allocated transparently from the outset.

4. Align incentives so operational burdens follow value

Disputes and reputational damage most often arise where commercial upside and long‑term operational responsibility are misaligned. Legacy only remains credible where incentives support efficient, sustainable operation over time.

The road to sustainability

Milano Cortina 2026 shows the direction of travel: reuse and lower‑carbon delivery models are increasingly central to the way major events are positioned. Stadium 974 shows why modular ‘flat‑pack’ ideas can be powerful but also why they invite scrutiny if dismantling or reuse doesn’t happen as clearly or as quickly as originally envisaged. London 2012’s Olympic Stadium proves that even when reuse is achieved, the sustainability story can still be undermined by operational conversion friction and misaligned commercial incentives. 

For developers, contractors and rights‑holders, sustainability must be a project discipline. If you want the claim of sustainability to stand up to scrutiny, build it into the brief, lock it into procurement and design the operating model so that the venue is viable, efficient and genuinely adaptable long after the event ends. 

How we can help

Our expert construction and sports sector teams help clients to translate sustainability ambition into clear, workable obligations that can be delivered in practice and defended under scrutiny. 

We advise developers, contractors, investors, rights‑holders and venue operators across the full lifecycle — from early feasibility and procurement strategy through to delivery and long‑term operation.

We can support you with:

• Sustainability‑led procurement and contracting, including measurable reporting/KPI frameworks and governance that actually works in live projects. 
• Temporary/modular and ‘design for disassembly’ risk allocation so responsibilities, costs and verification are clear.
• Venue operations and changeover risk, including drafting and negotiation around configuration changes, access, programming and the cost/time consequences of mode switching.

When issues arise, we also help clients to manage claims, protect their position and resolve disputes quickly, with a strong focus on keeping projects moving and venues operating.

Talk to us by calling 0333 004 4488, emailing hello@brabners.com or completing our contact form.