Yahoo TV

STORY: The Paris Olympics are billed as the greenest Games yet.

It’s a big claim from the organizers.

But alongside an event-wide ban on single-use plastic, what are the other green promises?

And is the French capital really going to be able to deliver on them all?

“Is it even possible to have sustainable Olympics?”

:: Sustainable Business

So far we’ve seen a host of green initiatives, including:

11,000 stadium seats made from recycled plastic,

a promise that a quarter of the athletes’ food will be produced less than 155 miles from the place of competition,

a pledge to double the amount of plant-based food on offer,

and an additional 3,000 pay-as-you-go bikes for spectators to get around.

Paris organizers aim to halve the carbon footprint of the Games compared with the Rio 2016 and the London 2012 Summer Games.

:: CO2 Emissions in Tonnes - Paris 2024 1.6 million - Rio 2016 3.4 million - London 2016 3.4 million

That 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, produced over the course of only a few weeks, is a significant amount, say experts like Martin Mueller from the University of Lausanne.

:: Martin Mueller, Professor of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne

‘’That's roughly the annual carbon budget of a city of 1 million people. You know, you could run a city for a year and or you could host the Olympic Games. And so the 1.6 million, on the one hand, it's significant improvement from previous Olympic Games. On the other hand, it's still a long way to go to actually get to where we need to get, by 2050, because we need to reduce carbon emissions by 90%.''

Mueller and his team analyzed the environmental impact of previous Olympic Games, systematically evaluating their sustainability credentials.

‘’We have to define what sustainability means because it's quite fuzzy term. So first the first step was to develop a model of sustainability where we measured, really, indicators in three areas. One area is ecological environmental sustainability. And the second one is socialist in ability. And the third one is economic.’’

His research cites experts who say mega-events like the Olympics pay mere lip service to sustainability.

‘’Sometimes foreground actions that look very spectacular and very cool, but they actually don't make a big difference in, in the larger picture. And I think, this simply shows also that the Olympic Games have the strong, visibility where you need to look good. But sometimes if you start scratching at the surface, you find that actually, well, there's not much behind this little structural change. And this is what we need, actually long term structural change in order to move towards sustainability.’’

Construction is one of the major ways in which the Olympics produces emissions.

95% of Paris 2024 is being hosted in existing buildings or temporary infrastructure.

:: Video: SOLIDEO-Dronepress

Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, built the athletes’ village with a cooling system drawing water from underground,

and no air con.

:: Anne Hidalgo, Paris Mayor

"What matters to me beyond the Games and the period of the Games is that these buildings, these apartments, will become a neighborhood where residents of Ile-Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and Saint-Denis will live in these new buildings and that they won't need air conditioning…’’

It wasn't a universally popular decision.

‘’We're looking at portable air conditioners to offer the athletes.’’

Hidalgo also says that hosting the Games has enabled the city to make faster strides towards its longer-term green goals.

“…the Games allowed us, Parisians, to accelerate this absolutely needed transformation, considering climate change, which we are facing. And without the Games, I would have needed an extra 10 years. So 20 years, instead of just 10.”

Part of that is an environmental clean-up of the river Seine so that athletes can safely swim in it again – as was the case during the 1900 Paris Olympics.

However, to make really significant progress toward a gold medal for sustainability, Mueller suggests more radical thinking is required - starting with ditching the spectators.

‘’In principle you could have sustainable Olympics very easily. Because anyway, today 99% of people watch the Olympics on screen. And they're not those that, cause the carbon emissions. // There are about 11,000 athletes for a Summer Olympics, who are the people in need for holding the event, right? Then you need some officials, some coaches and so on. But there are about 400,000 official accredited people. So about 40 people per athlete and whatever function. And then there are, you know, ten, 12, 13 million spectators. And so it's the spectator function that really makes a major difference in terms of the carbon emission.’’