The eThekwini municipality is intent on running a carbon-neutral World Cup from the new R3,1-billion Moses Mabhida stadium. But is this really greening or merely greenwash?
With cement production responsible for around 5% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, the city has crowed about its recycling of concrete (10 000m3) and 400 tonnes of steel from the old stadium to use in the construction of the new one.
Admirable, but the local government spin doesn’t hold up in comparison with the total amount of concrete used. According to construction company Group Five’s on-site director, Duncan Craig, 89 000m3 of concrete was poured into the stadium.
The 350m steel arch (weighing 2 900 tons) was also shipped in from Germany in 56 pieces — three pieces at a time. As was the R500-million stadium roof, which was also produced in Germany.
Stadium management is looking to create a “carbon-neutral” World Cup venue by offsetting carbon emisssions during the construction and usage of the stadium through effective management of waste, water resources and energy.
Nicci Diedrichs, coordinator of the municipality’s Greening Durban 2010 programme, said the city had put in place four green energy-creation projects (two hydropower energy projects, energy extraction from a landfill site and from waste water) that would channel enough green energy into the city’s grid to compensate for the stadium’s carbon emissions during construction and the tournament in “about three years’ time”.
But Bobby Peek, of environmental NGO GroundWork Friends of the Earth South Africa, said carbon-neutrality “is a myth” and that “it relies on offsetting and the system of carbon trading that has been denounced by the Friends of the Earth International [the world’s largest grassroots environmental network]”.
“There really is no hardcore proof around how Moses Mabhida is attaining neutrality and whether this system works. The bottom line is that once carbon is produced, it exists. Finish and klaar,” said Peek.
Lara McLeod, the stadium spokesperson, refused to reveal its monthly electricity bill. But the municipality has been gleefully lighting up the stadium virtually every night since completion late last year — even when nearby suburbs were suffering electricity blackouts.
The budget for Moses Mabhida first came in at R1,6-billion. This was after the eThekwini municipality decided against upgrading the Absa rugby stadium (the original host venue according to the World Cup bid book) across the road for R500-million. Since then construction costs have ballooned to R3,1-billion.
To offset the cost, the eThekwini municipality plans multiple usage of the spectacular stadium for various sports codes and appears intent on using it as a centrepiece for an often-talked of future Olympic bid.
But, according to the 2006 Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, 2010 business case — drawn up by the city after it had committed itself to building a new stadium — “the project rate of return” on the taxpayer-funded stadium “is essentially zero percent”.
This conclusion was reached after factoring in the stadium’s net World Cup revenues (R27-million) and post-tournament revenues (R24,5-million a year for all sporting events, advertising and suite sales) and its annual operational costs (estimated at R15-million a year).
Moses Mabhida will have a 70 000 seat capacity during the World Cup, with temporary seating removed for a 54 000 capacity afterwards. An athletics track will also be added after the tournament.
It is the stadium’s multipurpose nature that sometimes makes watching football at the stadium unsatisfying: The space reserved for the athletics track means seats are far from the pitch and the sightlines from behind the goalposts — where most of the local R140 tickets are situated — are terrible.
Another long-term usage plan has been the tourist potential of the iconic arch itself: adrenaline junkies can swing off the arch attached to the bungee swing or use the sky car to travel to the top of the 105m arch.
The multicoloured pattern of the seats moves upwards from a broadly blue colour at the bottom to an orange colour at the top of the seating. This represents the sea, earth and sky and also gives the impression of the stadium always being full.