The main focus of the 17 days of Olympic competition rightly was on the athletes.

But beyond the joy of winning and the pain of losing -- which we all shared -- there was another dynamic at play throughout the Games where there were no losers and where the awards are only just beginning. This was the effort being made by corporate-level sponsors to bring their own sustainability agendas to Vancouver for the world to see.

For the corporate sponsors of the 2010 Games the immediate and most obvious benefit was the opportunity for green branding and the chance to sell products. But for many other business leaders in town to catch an Olympic event or two and to meet government officials from across the nation, Vancouver 2010 was a testing ground for new ways to do business and new ideas that could change the world.

Most notable in this regard was Sir Richard Branson, who convened the first Carbon War Room summit in partnership with the City of Vancouver, where a bold plan was tabled to remove five billion tons of CO2 per year by 2020, in essence reducing the global carbon footprint by 10 percent.

Branson's plan, as some commentators have noted, is to tackle the low hanging fruit of energy inefficient buildings, where it is estimated that investments of $130 billion per year for building retrofits and $50 billion for renewable energy over the next 10 years could achieve the goal.

Even more important is the fact that much of that money required will come from the private sector, and its impact on job creation will stimulate economies everywhere.

As green business strategist Andrew Winston noted in his Harvard Business review blog, many other corporate sponsors used Vancouver 2010 to circumscribe time and space to test consumer reaction on a controllable scale to new products and new business strategies. Behind Coke's pre-games targets of zero waste and carbon neutrality was a plan to employ new refrigerants to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, hybrid delivery fleets, a new "PlantBottle," and the purchase of carbon offsets.

What better way to test this strategy than to use millions of devoted sports fans focused on one event at one point in time -- a moment that will change the way Coke's business unfolds for years to come and the impacts it will have on the environment.

The opportunity was not lost on other corporate sponsors. Rona used Vancouver 2010 to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability in how it does business and in the products it sells, as did others.