From white to green – the thinking behind the Winter Olympics
On Friday 6 February, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics officially opened.
Not in one stadium, and not in one place, but across multiple locations: Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Predazzo. As the Games move through their opening days, that choice already tells us something important about how these Olympics were designed.
This wasn’t about novelty.
It was about alignment.
A Games shaped by how it actually works
Milano Cortina 2026 was planned from the outset as a distributed Games, using existing venues across northern Italy rather than concentrating everything into a single, newly built Olympic hub.
The opening ceremony followed the same principle. Instead of pulling athletes, audiences and infrastructure into one location, it reflected the reality of how the Games are staged – spread across regions where winter sport already happens.
This approach is set out clearly in the organisers’ Sustainability, Impact & Legacy Strategy, which states that the Games are designed to:
“Maximise the use of existing and temporary venues, limiting new permanent construction wherever possible.”
— Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, Sustainability, Impact & Legacy Strategy
That decision brings complexity. Coordination is harder. Planning takes longer.
But it also reduces unnecessary construction, avoids concentrating transport demand, and works with existing infrastructure rather than reshaping landscapes for a short-term event.
From snow-covered venues to greener decisions
The Winter Olympics are defined by white landscapes – snow, ice and mountain environments. But the thinking behind Milano Cortina 2026 has been intentionally green.
Rather than treating sustainability as a separate initiative, the organisers published a dedicated sustainability strategy well in advance of the Games, intended to guide planning and delivery decisions throughout the lifecycle of the event. The International Olympic Committee’s Sustainability Strategy articulates the broader approach to reducing environmental impact and maximising long-term benefits for Games hosts, and this philosophy underpins how Milano Cortina 2026’s own strategy was developed.
This is not about claiming perfection. It is about acknowledging that environmental impact is shaped earliest – at the design stage – not after the event has already been locked in. Just like the Olympics, logistics also come with ongoing challenges. Even with a greener approach, the Winter Olympics still carry significant environmental downsides. Artificial snowmaking consumes large amounts of water and energy, often in regions already feeling the effects of climate change. Hosting events across multiple locations increases travel for athletes, officials and spectators, pushing up emissions, while temporary infrastructure and time-limited construction can still leave long-term impacts on fragile mountain environments.
The same tension exists in logistics. Global supply chains rely on legacy infrastructure, fossil-fuelled transport and tight delivery windows that limit how quickly change can happen. Progress is rarely perfect or instant – it’s about reducing what can be reduced, being honest about what remains, and improving decisions over time rather than pretending the challenges don’t exist.
Why this matters beyond sport
That same logic applies directly to logistics.
In freight, carbon has often been addressed after the fact. Goods move first. Emissions are calculated later. Offsetting is used to balance the total.
It is a familiar model, but it leaves the underlying system unchanged.
Green Leaves Logistics takes a different approach. The focus is on carbon avoidance and reduction first – making better decisions earlier, designing routes and solutions that emit less in the first place, and only then addressing what remains.
It’s not the simplest option. Like a multi-location Olympic opening ceremony, it accepts complexity in exchange for credibility.
But it is the approach that stands up to scrutiny.
Doing things differently, deliberately
Milano Cortina 2026 has not tried to present itself as a traditional, single-city Games. Instead, it has leaned into what makes sense for the places, the sport and the long-term impact on the regions involved.
As the organisers themselves state, the ambition is to deliver a Games that is credible, measurable and rooted in its host territories.
That idea – designing systems around reality rather than tradition – sits at the heart of how Green Leaves approaches sustainability in logistics.
Whether you’re hosting the Winter Olympics or moving goods around the world, meaningful impact doesn’t come from clean-up exercises. It comes from better decisions made earlier.
Thinking about how your supply chain is designed?
If your business is starting to question whether offsets alone genuinely support your sustainability goals, it may be time to look earlier in the process – at planning, routing and avoided emissions, not just after-the-fact fixes.
You can explore how Green Leaves Logistics approaches carbon avoidance and transparent reporting, or get in touch to talk it through.
Because moving from white to green isn’t about appearances – it’s about how things are designed from the start.