The London 2012 sustainability watchdog embroiled in a row over the sports shipof the Olympic Stadium by Dow Chemical is to push the International OlympicCommittee to appoint an “ethics champion” for future Games. 

The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 has been bruised by criticismover Dow’s sponsorship of the wrap that will surround the Olympic stadium,particularly since commissioner Meredith Alexander last month resigned in protest. 

Campaigners believe that Dow has ongoing liabilities relating to the 1984 Bhopaldisaster that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 people and the seriousinjury of tens of thousands more. Dow, which bought the owner of the plant in 2001,insists that all liabilities have been settled in full. 

Commission chairman Shaun McCarthy said that its tight sustainability remit didnot extend to acting as moral guardian of the Olympic movement but that it wouldpress for such a role to be created when evaluating sponsors for future Games. 

In addition to sponsoring the 7m pounds wrap that will surround the OlympicStadium, Dow has a separate 100m dollars sponsorship deal with the IOC that wassigned in. 

But McCarthy also defended the commission ’s role in evaluating the Dow deal,after Amnesty International wrote to London 2012 chairman Lord Coe to raise theissue. 

“What has been lost in all of this story is that a really excellent, sustainableproduct has been procured, we looked at Locog ’s examination of Dow Chemical ’scurrent corporate responsibility policies and, again, Dow achieved that highest scorein that evaluation. We verified that. ” said McCarthy. 

“As far as the history is concerned and issues around Bhopal, there is no doubtBhopal was a terrible disaster and snore injustice was done to the victims. Who isresponsible for that injustice is a matter for the courts and a matter for others. Wehave a specific remit and terms of reference that we operate under and we haveoperated diligently under those terms. ” 

The commission will on Thursday release its annual review. It finds that “goodpress” has been made to wands many of Locog ’s sustainability target, but that“major challenges” remain.In particular, the commission found that there was no coherent strategy toachieve a 20% reduction in carbon emissions after an earlier scheme to userenewable energy feel through when a wind turbine on the site proved impractical. 

“We had conversations with Locog over a year ago about this and said they hadto demonstrate how they were going to achieve at least 20% carbon reductionsthrough energy conservation if they ’re not going to do it through renewable energy, ”said McCarthy. “There are some good initiatives, but quite frankly they just haven ’tdone it.” 

Why was Dow ’s sponsorship criticized according to the passage?