At our house, we are always very excited about the Olympics. There are many great sports to watch that we do not usually get to see, lots of information about countries and athletes that we would not otherwise hear, and fascinating characters and dramas that unfold over the two weeks.

This year there is more excitement to watch as the London Olympics become the most sustainable, “green” Olympic Games to date, and a model for sustainability long after the Olympics have gone.

We had this experience when the Seattle World’s Fair was designed to be a permanent improvement for the city — a new community center for the new century — and it was very successful. But the London Olympics has the advantage of 50 additional years of knowledge of sustainability and the needs of our planet.

With 77,000 athletes, plus all the coaches, support teams, families, judges, organizers and hosts, I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to do anything new. Wisely, they set up an independent commission to watch over and guide all things sustainable, which has been working since the Games were awarded to London in 2004.

They are addressing five areas of sustainable life with the Games: — Climate change, including the goal to reduce the carbon footprint of the Games — a huge challenge when you consider all the construction and all the travel involved. The carbon footprint is being measured, from the green construction phase through energy use during the Games. The Velodrome track, for instance, is built from sustainable FSC certified wood and is a 100 percent naturally ventilated building. Twenty percent of the energy used during the Games will be coming from renewable resources like wind and solar.

When they couldn’t fit in a wind turbine on the site to produce their power, they decided to offset some power usage by retrofitting energy-efficient solutions in homes and schools in the community, a solution that will have great consequences for the future.

For the first time, no cars will be permitted on the Olympic grounds; people will have to leave their cars outside the city and use public transportation. The transportation infrastructure of London was upgraded, which will improve their public transport for decades to come, as well.

— Waste for the landfill is being drastically reduced. The goal is for zero-waste Games, an amazing goal, to be achieved with excellent management practices and by promoting long-term changes. There will be a mix of composting, recycling and reduced packaging on the site, and garbage will be processed to look for recyclables, compostables, and other items that can be kept out of the landfill.  There is a huge educational opportunity here; think of all the Olympic participants who will be learning about the importance of “reduce-reuse-recycle,” and will hopefully re-think their actions at home. This could have worldwide implications.

— Biodiversity is a key element of sustainability. Their goal is to conserve the biodiversity present, both in the natural world and in the human presence. But they go beyond that to creating new urban green spaces and making it possible for the diverse humanity to spend time in nature during their stay.

—Inclusion of all is not automatic at the Olympic Games. Their goal is to assure access for all and to celebrate diversity. This reaches out to the future life of the location of the Games in East London.

The location is a particular industrial area that is very poor economically. The rivers running through the area are polluted and a lot of the land is contaminated. There was even a huge stack of refrigerators there, ones that no one knew what to do with them. We have some bad Superfund sites here, but this contamination of the Earth goes back to the industrial days of Victorian England.

After the Games, this community will not simply have many usable, sustainably built arenas or community gathering areas. It will have thousands of affordable apartment homes, also sustainably built and energy-efficient. The rivers will be on their way to being cleaned up. New parks and green areas will be established. Small businesses will be revitalized. They want to create a better community with walkable neighborhoods, but will not allow developers to drive out the working-class people who live there now. Their goal is not to create a gentrified district for the privileged, but to improve the infrastructure of the current community for the people who live there now. This is a project in process that will continue for years.

— Healthy Living is the fifth sustainability theme. That seems a given for any Olympic Games, since the focus is on athletics and active lifestyles. Many of us get inspired to take those running shoes or tennis rackets out of the closet and put them to use again. But their goal is to make that a sustainable part of the U.K. life.

A healthy lifestyle includes living within the limited resources of our planet. Eating well, being physically active in the outdoors, and improving our physical environment will improve our own quality of life, our well-being, and our happiness. This, too, is something I hope will spread throughout the world. The Olympic Games are inspiring on so many levels; this year we can also look forward to being inspired to be sustainable citizens of Earth.

Stillwaters is starting a new Sustainability Discussion Group in the fall. If you are interested, call (360) 297-1226.

— Naomi Maasberg is director of Stillwaters Environmental Learning Center. Contact her at  naomi@stillwatersenvironmentalcenter.org.