Next up are the Paralympics and were can expect similar breathtaking and perhaps even more inspirational performances at the Olympic venues that have already become iconic.

But with the Olympics now having reached their conclusion, questions are being asked more vigorously about how sustainable the Games have been.

Fortunately, London 2012 is well ahead of the game here, largely thanks to its huge sustainability efforts from the outset led by David Stubbs.

Stubbs, the head of sustainability for London 2012, is certainly no newcomer to the issue having been involved with the project since November 2003 as part of the bid team.

David Stubbs, London 2012's head of sustainability, pictured in front of the Olympic Stadium

It was undoubtedly an astute move to appoint the internationally renowned specialist in the field of sport and environment who, during the 1990s, was director of the European Golf Association Ecology Unit and established the first pan-European environmental management programme for golf courses.

In 1998 he began advising the British Olympic Association (BOA) on environmental matters and in 2000 worked with the environment team for the Sydney Olympics and Paralympics.

From the early stages of the London bid, Stubbs and his team set out to establish a new benchmark in this increasingly important area for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which desperately wants its premier event to be environmentally friendly and sustainable, wherever it is staged.

"The fact that this is the first Games to have measured its carbon footprint over the entire project term has allowed us to plan ahead," Stubbs told me as we walked through the Olympic Park together.

"The planning and level of detail that has gone into this programme will ensure we deliver the most sustainable summer Games yet.

"From the very start of construction of the Olympic Park, we worked closely with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) on creating an infrastructure designed to make London 2012 the greenest Games to date.

Solar panels fitted to London 2012's Main Press Centre help generate renewable energy

"We have carried on with that mentality right the way through. For example, shortly before the start of the Games we completed our scheme to fit solar panels to the Main Press Centre (MPC) to generate renewable energy. This helps save around 170 tonnes of carbon every year in legacy alongside cells that will be fitted to the roof of the adjacent multi-storey car park post-Games.

"Around the same time, we completed the London 2012 Energy Centre.

"The Energy Centre is around 30 per cent more efficient than [those places using] traditional heat and power-generation methods, and uses a number of technologies including ammonia chillers, high efficiency gas boilers, and a Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CCHP) plant – capturing and using waste heat – to power venues on the site. It is very impressive and will become a visitor centre after the Games.

"So we are very happy with what we have done. We set out to push the boundaries to see how sustainable we could make the venues and infrastructure on the Olympic Park – not just for the Games but for years afterwards. The result is one that United Kingdom [UK] industries can be proud of as a showcase of innovation and careful planning."

Stubbs is right to credit the work of the ODA which, to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability when building the Olympic Park, funded two pioneering carbon-reduction schemes that will help save around 1,500 tonnes of carbon across London annually as part of the Greater London Authority's energy-saving drive.

The hi-tech London 2012 Energy Centre powers various Games venues on the Olympic Park site

Around 700 tonnes of carbon – the equivalent to 140 Olympic-sized swimming pools – will be saved by fitting energy-saving technology in a dozen London 2012 Host Borough schools as part of the RE:FIT programme being delivered by EDF Energy, the Official Electricity Supplier to London 2012. The schools' energy consumption will be cut by 25 per cent per year once the work is completed next month. A package of measures, including energy-efficient lighting, upgraded heating systems and boiler optimisation, has been designed to accommodate each school's preferences and needs.

"They have been a key part of this and their contribution deserves to be recognised," Stubbs said. "It has been fantastic to work with them on such an important project."

In addition to the work of the ODA, other partners have contributed to the legacy of the London Games. For example, Olympic worldwide sponsor Dow Chemical announced at the close of the Games a partnership with leading British building and development charity Article 25 and recycling company Axion Recycling to repurpose the entire Olympic Stadium wrap.

Dow developed the wrap material to meet London 2012's Sustainable Sourcing Code and Temporary Material Guidelines, and the total wrap system, including steel cables and fixtures, accounts for less than 0.5 per cent of the stadium's total carbon footprint. The textile wrap panels are slated for recycling and reuse projects in Britain, as well as shelter solutions for at-risk children in Uganda and Rio.

As Stubbs and I talked, we passed the UK's largest ever man-made wildflower meadows located around the main Olympic Stadium in the Olympic Park.

Dow's sustainable Olympic Stadium wrap will be recycled and reused after London 2012 

The riverbank meadows of bee-friendly cornflowers, marigolds, Californian poppies and prairie flowers were designed to flower late by international wildflower expert Professor Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield so that they bloomed gold just in time for the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on July 27.

With over 10 football fields' worth of nectar-rich wildflower meadows, the gardens, lawns, woodlands and wetlands have provided the colourful setting for the Games in the pictures beamed around the world and the area will blossom as a new park for generations to come.

But perhaps more impressive are the statistics involved in creating it.

The project saw the planting of 4,000 trees, 300,000 wetland plants, 15,000 square metres of lawns and more than 150,000 perennial plants and bushes in both the Olympic Park and Athletes' Village.

The bulk of this work was carried out last year and throughout the winter and spring by the ODA with a dedicated team of specialist gardeners and horticulturists battling the elements created by the British weather to ensure that the park reached its colourful peak during the Olympics; the process has included wrapping trees through winter and cutting back thousands of early flowering plants.

"Creating a green park was something very important for us both from an environmental and aesthetic point of view because it does bring colour and look beautiful," Stubbs said.

"The gardens, lawns and meadows that provided the colourful setting for the Games, as well as getting the wildflower meadows timed to flower around the start of the Games, is just one example of the painstakingly detailed and innovative work the team of experts has created in the Olympic Park.

"One of the best parts of this story is how much this area has been transformed because of this project.

"Before the Games, we had piles of rotting fridges everywhere and a river that was so full and contaminated you could barely make out the water.

"But we have cleaned up [what was] formerly industrial land and opened up inaccessible riverbanks to create a new great park that will be here for people and wildlife for the long haul."

The picturesque Olympic Park is a carefully cultivated haven for all manner of wildlife

The wildlife is indeed diverse. Already, there have been sightings of  otters, kingfishers, grey herons, bees, house sparrows, bats, starlings, toadflax brocade moths, lizards, black redstarts, flower and fungus beetles, frogs, newts, toads, eels, water voles, slow worms, grass snakes, linnets, sand martins, swifts and invertebrates.

There's also lots of room as the riverside garden that runs through the Olympic Park stretches for half a mile between the Aquatics Centre and Olympic Stadium on land that has been cleaned and cleared of railway sidings, contamination and Japanese knotweed.

The area celebrates centuries of British passion for gardens and plant collecting, with picnic lawns and timber seating nestling among 120,000 plants from 250 different species across the world.

There are also more than 300,000 wetland plants, grown in Norfolk and Wales, planted in the park as part of the UK's largest ever urban river and wetland plantation.

Over 30 species of native reeds, rushes, grasses, sedges, wet wildflowers and irises were grown initially on the Gower peninsula in Wales, with around a third cultivated from cuttings and seeds collected from the Olympic Park before construction started.

After starting life on the Gower, the plants were grown-on on coir mats sunk in waterbeds in Thetford, Norfolk, before finally being planted on the Olympic Park riverbanks.

The Royal Horticultural Society Great British Garden in the Olympic Park

But undoubtedly one of the highlights is the riverside Royal Horticultural Society Great British Garden that overlooks the Olympic Stadium, featuring – appropriately – gold, silver and bronze areas with identically coloured wildflowers and grasses, features and running track-inspired spiral paths.

The Great British Garden also includes a De Coubertin oak, grown from an acorn collected from the tree planted by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1894 to thank the citizens of Much Wenlock in Shropshire for inspiring him to the found the modern Olympic Games.

"In the space of just a few years a predominantly neglected industrial area has been completely transformed as we cleaned and reshaped the land before planting thousands of trees and plants," Stubbs said.

"The wildflower meadows are a tribute to the UK's horticultural expertise and a great example of how we have made something simple and sustainable with careful planning."

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

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