It was interesting to read the discussion on building.co.uk about how to harness the “sustainability values” of the 2012 Olympic Games (Green expertise in danger of being lost, 27 July)

I was once head of environmental planning for Stockholm’s campaign for the 2004 Olympics and planned how to use them as a vehicle for the quicker development of environmental technologies and sustainable city development.

Stockholm didn’t get the Games (Athens did), but the Hammarby Waterfront district, which would have been the Olympic village, has still been a flagship for Swedish sustainable city development, and has contributed the industry’s export success. This could have much more efficient if better planned and managed - after losing the Games much of the driving force was lost …

You need an integrated planning and set-up for harvesting the full potential of the 2012 Games. Locog is not the right organisation for that. They are fully occupied with delivering the Games (rightly so), and you need some other actor to look beyond the Games now if you want to succeed.

Regards and good luck!

Mikael Edelstam, consultant on sustainable city development and clean tech, Sweden

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