Analyzing the ambitions to develop sustainable stadiums in Brazil and the Netherlands

For the World Championships of 2014 and 2018, the International Football Association “Fédération Internationale de Football Association” (FIFA) had issued hosting countries the request to organize the sports event in a sustainable way. One way to enhance sustainability of these large scale events is by reducing the life cycle energy use of its sport venues both directly and indirectly. Scientific literature offers many aspects that need to be taken into account to enhance sustainable design of buildings. Well known is, for example, the trinity People, Planet, Profit. In this research we focus on two of these categories of measures to analyze sustainable project ambitions. In specific, we measure values related to (1) water use, (2) material use, both as part of the aspect Planet, and (3) stakeholder participation, as part of the category People. Our case study focuses on assessing the ambitions during the early stage planning and conceptual design of sports buildings. It encompasses two projects; one football stadium in Manaus (Brazil, host of Wold Cup 2014) and one football stadium in Enschede (the Netherlands, candidate host 2018). Conclusions are drawn based on the main differences and similarities between theory and practice and the preliminary designs of the two stadiums.