This paper draws on the example of the London Olympics 2012 to argue that a new ‘realistic’ politics of good governance and output‐focused private sector delivery now dominates sustainability policy thinking. It is a politics that makes a series of normative claims and promises based on a pragmatic and non‐ideological approach to sustainability. Its advocates claim that it converts the lofty ideals and aspirations of utopian sustainability into tangible, verifiable and output‐based delivery mechanisms. The discussion examines the governance arrangements that were put in place for the Games and the ways in which sustainability objectives were defined, institutionalised and mobilised by hybrid public and private actors. It outlines some of the wider impacts of this new development model and its implications for thinking about sustainability planning elsewhere.