The Olympic motto of Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together, has been reimagined for Paris 2024 as Anticipate, Avoid, Reduce, Offset, and Mobilise. According to the Olympic committee, the Paris games are going to be the most sustainable ever, having set itself the bold goal of cutting in half the carbon footprint of previous summer games, which come in at an average 3.5 million tonnes of CO2. It wouldn’t be the Olympics if you don’t push yourself toward lofty aspirations.
Anticipating what the city will have to deal with is only the start. Some 800 sporting events, around 15,000 athletes, an estimated 45,000 volunteers and 26,000 media, are only the tip of an ever-melting iceberg. Paris is also readying itself for around 15 million visitors, all of which will bring their own carbon footprint challenges.
Compared to other host cities, Paris has already taken one major step toward more sustainability, by building only one new sporting venue for the games. The Aquatic Centre in Saint-Denis, while new, will be solar-powered, and has been built with recycled and bio-rated materials, generating 47% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional methods. The housing for the athletes, who will be sleeping on mattresses made from recycled fishing nets and are to be fed plenty of vegan and vegetarian and locally sourced meals, will be turned into residential accommodation after the games, and the roofs have already been planted with green habitats, attracting insects.
With public transport in good working order, bicycle lanes opened in favour of roads, and many once busy streets closed to vehicles other than public transport, visitors will also be supplied with reusable water bottles and drinking fountains throughout the city and the venues, which is said to reduce single-use plastic by 50%. Paris is certainly looking set to go green.
But it is not all plain sailing, or, in this case, swimming. Back in 2021, the son of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, swam the length of the Seine in a show of clean water and the river being ready for hosting Olympic swimming events. But the continuous effort hit several snags along the way, with failed water quality tests casting doubt at the cleanliness of the river and its safety over the last couple of years.
To help the effort, in April a new water treatment plant opened in Champigny-sur-Marne, a south-eastern suburb of Paris, and a vast storm drain facility is opening this month next to Gare d’Austerlitz, capable of holding the equivalent of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools of excess water, to prevent the drains and sewers of Paris from overflowing and potentially contaminating the Seine.
Another sticking point may quite literally be the lack of air-conditioning in the athletes housing. Built such that the rooms are insulated and cooled by a geo-thermal water system instead of energy-guzzling air-conditioning units, in July and August there is a high chance of a heat wave, potentially making the accommodation rather uncomfortable.
So, how much of the green efforts are truly beneficial, and how much of the hype is white washing the gransjd ambitions? It has to be said that if any country or city can go green, then Paris, and France, stand a good chance.
Anne Hidalgo has been creating a green city over the last decade and more, relatively quietly implementing bicycle lanes, closing the Champs-Élysées to cars on a monthly basis, taking away car parking spaces even in the residential neighbourhoods, scrapping outdoor heating from the café terraces, and working toward the 15-minute city ideal. The Eiffel Tower has already gone sustainable, with its own wind-turbines, solar panelling, LED lighting, and rainwater collection set up long before the Olympics were won. France was also the first country in the world to ban short-haul flights where suitable train journeys were available in their place.
But whether the ambitions will be met, the challenges won, and useful lessons learned for the future of the games and the planet will have to be assessed after the event.
