Dow Olympic sponsorship controversy

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The Guardian recently ran with a story discussing Dow Chemical's controversial sponsorship of the Olympic Stadium. 

It raised an interesting question with regards to Olympic sponsorship. The controversy couldn't exactly be unexpected given the company's alleged 'liabilities' relating to the 1984 Bhopal disaster, but a very dangerous message has been sent out, possibly akin to "as long as they fulfil their £7 million part of the deal for the wrap that will go around the stadium, what's the problem?"

This isn't the only thing the company will be doing either, as it also has a $100 million sponsorship deal with the IOC itself.

All this comes in the context that the "(Olympic) Commission found that there was no coherent strategy to achieve a 20% reduction in carbon emissions". There could have been, but an initial plan to provide a wind turbine on the site proved 'impractical'.

This isn't the first time questions have been asked, and it won't be the last - but it is difficult to take given the previous boasts that London 2012 would be the 'greenest ever'.

Even a simple Twitter search for 'Olympic sponsorship' will guide you towards a collection of Tweets made during the Dispatches program covered in an earlier post, with the basic message of those being apathetic at best, and something similar to "it's no surprise that those sponsoring the games have access to tickets".

The Metro also recently reported about Olympic sponsorship, and carried quotes suggesting that "[The] 2012 Games has 55 sponsors, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa".

There is an obvious elephant in the room here too. McDonald's? A fast food company, sponsors of the Olympics? I doubt somehow that the athletes looking at their advertising hoardings around the various venues while the games are on visit their restaurants too often. 

Clearly the partnership is important to both sides, and McDonalds do seem to acknowledge corporate social responsibility, with them training 70,000 volunteers.

But perhaps even better evidence of corporate social responsibility and a good PR opportunity would be to train the people who eat there more than they should!