It’s been almost a decade since world leaders met to agree on a set of commitments intended to keep humanity within the safe level of 1.5C of global warming. Since then, the Paris Agreement has been the blueprint guiding us on how to build a stable climate future.
This summer, however, Paris has come into the spotlight for a completely different reason. The city held the 23rd Olympic Games exactly a century after its first turn as host in 1924. The Olympic Games, with its modern values of “excellence, respect and friendship” exist to “promote sport, culture and education with a view to building a better world”.
Yet when climate change poses existential risks to many of the communities meant to be uplifted by the Olympic movement, do the Olympic Games truly succeed in building a better world? Or are they yet another source of the excessive production and consumption of energy and resources that threaten our future?
Paris is a very different place to what it was when it last hosted the Games. A recent report by scientists at the University of Portsmouth found that the average temperature in July and August has increased by 2.4C and 2.7C degrees respectively, impacting athletes’ performances and requiring new approaches to ensure their comfort and safety.
In parallel, following a theme common in many large cities these days, the Seine failed a number of water quality tests early in the Games, putting in jeopardy planned events such as triathlon and open water swimming. Though the events ultimately went ahead, concerns about the health and safety of such an iconic public watercourse made for unwelcome environmental headlines in the run-up to the games.
From its inception, Paris 2024 has been touted by the International Olympic Committee as the most sustainable Olympics ever and a showcase for the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020. With a target of nearly halving the emissions produced by Rio 2016 and London 2012 — estimated at 3.6 and 3.3 million tonnes of CO2 respectively — the Committee put in place a number of measures meant to lower the environmental impacts of the Games dramatically and align it with the Paris Agreement itself.
Are these measures enough to counteract the environmental footprint of one of the biggest events in the world, one with a record-breaking 8.7 million tickets sold? Here are some examples of the complexity of organising a massive sporting event while minimising the impact to the planet.
- Energy: All the Paris Olympic venues integrated renewable solar, geothermal, bio-fuel and other certified renewable power, establishing permanent connections to the national grid that will be used for many years to come.
- Reduce, reuse, recycle: The staggering number of furniture items usually required by the Olympics was reduced from 800,000 to 600,000. 75% of equipment was rented, and the organisers worked to provide a second life to all temporary infrastructure, furniture and equipment.
- Paris 2024 minimised building construction with only two new venues built out of a total of 26. This is an improvement over previous events: there were 6 new venues in London and 10 in Rio. Both new venues used low-carbon construction methods, and whole-roof solar panels adorn the new Aquatics Centre.
- Single-use plastic has been halved, helped in part by Coca-Cola’s installation of 700 beverage fountains. This is a welcome effort from the world’s biggest plastic polluter (who still reportedly sold 40% of drinks in plastic bottles, unfortunately).
- Food: The organisers aimed to halve the footprint of each one of the 13 million meals provided while doubling the amount of plant-based ingredients, using local producers, and making sure that most food waste was repurposed or composted.
- Transport: Locations for the games were chosen to minimise travel between events. 400 km of new bike lanes were put in place and local transport services expanded by 15%.
- While the London Olympics prioritised local fans, targeting 75% of ticket sales to Londoners, this year the IOC chose to sell all tickets centrally and simultaneously worldwide. According to the IOC, 62% of ticket holders were French, leaving a large proportion to international travellers leading inevitably to transport emissions, particularly from international flights. Research has shown that participant and spectator travel can account for around 25% of a sporting event’s carbon footprint.
We will not know the actual impact of the Games until the IOC publishes its actual carbon impact in the autumn following its published 2018 methodology. Nonetheless, Paris 2024 represents an important step forward in the organisation of sustainable sporting events and featured many novel and large-scale sustainability approaches that others will be able to learn from. The IOC is committed to continuing to lead in this direction after Paris, ensuring that the city’s international sport and climate cooperation legacies are lasting ones.
