The slogan of the Olympics is "Higher, Faster, Stronger", but for the Paris Organising Committee, they may want to add one more – more environmentally friendly.
As early as the bidding stage, Paris pledged that they would host the most sustainable Olympics ever, and the first to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The Paris Agreement, adopted at the 2015 United Nations climate summit in Paris, is the most important climate agreement to date, and the main content is to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial level, and strive to limit it to 1.5°C|Olympics.com
The sustainability of the Olympic Games is gaining traction. New stadiums can destroy natural habitats, generate significant carbon emissions from delegations and spectators flying from around the world to the same city, and often consume single-use plastics during the event. London 2012 and Rio 2016 emitted an average of 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent; Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics only had a small number of local spectators, so carbon emissions were less than 2 million tons. Paris has pledged to reduce carbon emissions from the Games to half of those from London and Rio, or 1.75 million tons.
Paris is ambitious, but it will not be easy to achieve this goal, and the reality is not as rosy as they planned.
Clothing, food, housing and transportation can be low-carbon everywhere
In previous Olympic Games, the carbon footprint was calculated after the event. This time, in order to achieve the goal, Paris conducted an assessment in the preparatory stage. They split the carbon budget into three parts: transportation (34%), buildings (33%), and operations (including catering, accommodation, logistics, etc., 33%), and control carbon emissions through the "ARO principle".
ARO refers to the avoidance and reduction of carbon emissions, and for the carbon emissions that cannot be avoided, they are offset by funding environmental protection projects. This principle has been practiced in all aspects of the Olympic Games.
Venues: Reduction of new construction
Buildings are currently the highest carbon emitter industry, accounting for about 37% of global carbon emissions. This time, Paris will place 95% of its events in existing or temporary venues; Only a few new venues have been built for the Olympic Games, such as the Olympic Village/Paralympic Village, the Aquatics Centre, the Le Bourget Sport Climbing Gym, and the La Chapelle Porta Stadium.
For the existing venues, in addition to renovating the stadiums, the France have also turned some famous attractions into Olympic venues by building temporary facilities. For example, the Palace of Versailles, after the construction of a temporary competition venue, was used for the equestrian and modern pentathlon competitions of the Paris Olympics;
凡尔赛宫变身马术比赛场地|Palace of Versailles / T. Garnier
The Grand Palais, built in 1900 for the Paris Exposition, was used to host the Olympic and Paralympic fencing and taekwondo competitions;
Fencing competition at the Grand Palais in Paris|Xie Zhiyang / Lianhe Zaobao
Beach volleyball will be played at the Eiffel Tower Stadium.
Eiffel Tower and beach volleyball match at sunset|Wei Xiaohao / China Daily
When building new venues or temporary facilities, the Paris Organising Committee is also following low-carbon principles. For example, recycled or reusable materials are used in construction, and natural ventilation is added by design to reduce electricity demand.
Water Sports Centre. According to the official introduction, the 55-centimeter-thick wooden roof is a natural insulating material; The middle recess reduces the volume inside the venue and thus reduces the amount of energy required to heat and condition the air|Salem Mostefaoui / Olympics.com
Several new venues will continue to be used after the Games. The water sports center will be a comprehensive sports facility open to all, providing swimming and rock climbing sports venues; In the Seine-Saint-Denis department, where the climbing gym is located, there is an extreme lack of sports facilities, and the stadium will be used by local associations and residents on a daily basis. Ninety thousand trees have been planted around the Athletes' Village, which is planned to be transformed into a community after the Olympics, including landscaped parks, community shops, office buildings, and 2,500 housing units, three-quarters of which will be provided as affordable housing for low-income groups and students.
Equipment: Rental with used materials
By consolidating demand, the Paris Organising Committee has reduced all equipment from 800,000 to 600,000, and 75% of the sports equipment and electronic equipment are leased, reducing waste caused by purchases. The Organising Committee has also pledged that all equipment and 90 per cent of the signage will be recycled after the Games, and that 100 per cent of the materials used to build temporary facilities will be given a second life.
The purple runway, which uses 50% renewable and non-fossil materials according to the manufacturer, is a more environmentally friendly track than before|Paris 2024
For the new equipment, the Paris Organising Committee uses a lot of recycled materials. For example, this podium is made of recycled plastic and plastic foam food containers, so it can be said that the athletes are standing on the garbage to receive the award!
The podium at the Paris Olympics can be adjusted in length by adding or decreasing modules, from a minimum of 4 meters to a maximum of 33 meters, for football awards|Salem Mostefaoui / Olympics.com
The podium was made by a France startup called Le Pavé, who also produced 11,000 spectator seats for the Olympics, recycled from 100 tons of recycled shampoo bottles and plastic bottle caps.
The seats in the water sports center are made of plastic bottle caps|Salem Mostefaoui / Olympics.com
In the Athletes' Village, the beds and mattresses are made from reinforced cardboard and recycled fishing nets, respectively, and they are later recycled. In addition, there are coffee tables made of badminton and cushions made of parachute canvas.
The medals of this Olympic Games are, to some extent, also the reuse of "waste materials": part of the Eiffel Tower was removed during the modernization of the Eiffel Tower in the last century; This time, the France took these historical materials and recreated them, adding the original iron of the Eiffel Tower to the center of each medal.
In the middle of the medal is the Eiffel Tower's "scrap" iron Olympics.com
Energy: 100% green energy
To avoid the risk of power outages, large events in the past have often relied heavily on large diesel generators. This time, the Paris Organising Committee opted for the power grid to power the games. They calculated the amount of electricity needed to be consumed by the competition venues and then purchased an equivalent amount of renewable energy; The power company feeds the electricity into the public grid to ensure the power supply to the event. According to the Paris Organising Committee, these renewable energy sources come from six wind farms and two solar farms; Backup generators will also use hydrogen or biofuels whenever possible.
In addition to using renewable energy, the Paris Organising Committee is also reducing energy consumption by replacing high-efficiency equipment such as LED lighting systems. The new stadium was also built with the need for green energy in mind: the nearly 5,000 square meters of the roof of the aquatic center were laid with photovoltaics, one of the largest urban solar farms in France, which can meet about 20% of the venue's electricity needs; The heat recovered from the nearby data center is used to maintain the temperature of the swimming pool.
The water sports centre hosts diving, water polo and synchronized swimming competitions, and the pool temperature is maintained using heat Olympics.com from a nearby data centre
Instead of air conditioning, high-performance insulation was used to reduce the heat absorbed by the building. At the same time, underground pipes are connected to the local geothermal power plant, which is planned to be cooled by cold underground water in the summer and hot water in the winter. However, in view of the record-breaking summer temperatures in Paris in recent years, the Olympic Village finally offered mobile air conditioning rentals.
Nearly 1,000 square meters of photovoltaic carports have also been temporarily built in the athletes' village to provide self-generated electricity for delegations. A 400-square-metre movable solar power plant has also been built on the Seine, which can provide electricity for about 30 two-bedroom units. These temporary facilities will be installed and used elsewhere after the race.
奥运村的屋顶也安装了光伏，支持园区的用电需求｜Sennse / Drone Press
Dining: Local food, add vegetarian food
Eighty per cent of the food provided to athletes at the Paris Olympics is provided by local farms, reducing carbon emissions from food transportation. They serve global cuisine, but half of it is vegetarian, more than every previous Olympics. One of Nestlé's plant-based meat companies has also become a sponsor of the Olympics.
However, the athletes can't get enough to eat! Some athletes are already high in calories, and the high-intensity training to prepare for the Olympics requires more energy. Fortunately, Paris quickly adjusted the menu so that the athletes did not go hungry.
Paris prepares 50 dishes for the athletes, with 40 different dishes every day, with French, Asian, Afro-Caribbean and world cuisines as the theme Olympics.com
The Olympic Village restaurant serves washable plates instead of disposable cutlery. The mayor of Paris said last year that they decided to make the Paris Olympics the first major event to do not use single-use plastics. Spectators were allowed to bring their own water glasses, and they partnered with Coca-Cola to install 700 drinking points at the competition venue and provide reusable glass bottles; The marathon will also provide participants with reusable cups.
However, Paris's decision to ban plastics may not materialize. It was discovered that although the audience used reusable water bottles, the drinks they drank were Coca-Cola poured from disposable plastic bottles......
Transportation: Shorten the distance between venues
One-third of the estimated carbon emissions of the Olympics are related to travel. Paris called on delegations and spectators to use low-carbon transport to get to France, which is reluctant for far-flung countries, but feasible for neighbouring countries – athletes from Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland eventually travel to Paris by train.
Paris has also kept the distance between venues as short as possible, with 80% of the venues within 10 km of the Olympic Village, reducing travel time for athletes. All venues are accessible by public transport, and the 60-kilometre cycle path provides more options for spectators.
In recent years, Paris has doubled the number of cycle lanes and aims to become a 100% rideable city|MDB
Carbon offsets: 1.47 million tons
For unavoidable Olympic-related carbon emissions, the Paris Organising Committee buys carbon credits equivalent to the emissions by funding environmental projects.
So far, the Paris Organising Committee has purchased 1,472,550 tonnes of CO2 carbon credits in 13 projects. Four of the projects are in France, all related to planting or restoring forests; Nine other projects are located abroad, including the installation of cooking systems and access to water in Nigeria, Congo, Kenya and Rwanda, solar power plants in Senegal and Viet Nam, and the protection of forests in Guatemala and Kenya and the restoration of mangrove forests in Senegal.
Reality can't keep up with the plan?
Hosting the lowest-carbon Olympics ever, Paris does have an inherent advantage.
This old international metropolis hosted two Olympic Games 100 years ago, and has also hosted major events such as the World Cup and the European Championship in the past 30 years. The venues and facilities built for these events will be used in the Olympic Games. Moreover, Paris adopted a climate action plan in 2007 to reduce the city's carbon emissions and install solar panels, which also made the basis for a low-carbon Olympics in Paris.
The Bordeaux Stadium, where the football match was held, was built for the 2016 European Championship Olympics.com
However, the truth is not as rosy as planned in Paris. For example, in the Olympic Village, which is not planned to be air-conditioned, the organizers have to provide portable air-conditioning in the face of the reality of continuous high temperatures. The planned low-carbon catering has also been adjusted because it cannot meet the dietary needs of athletes. All of this will put the actual carbon emissions of the Paris Olympics beyond the budget.
Others have questioned that Paris's marketing of a low-carbon Olympics is a bit exaggerated. In addition to the aforementioned Coca-Cola, which uses single-use plastics, another partner, Toyota, has also been questioned. Toyota has pledged to provide 500 zero-tailpipe hydrogen-powered vehicles for the Olympics, but some academics have suggested to the IOC that hydrogen-powered vehicles require three times as much electricity as pure electric vehicles, and that about 96% of hydrogen is still produced using fossil fuels, which is not a truly low-carbon approach.
Moreover, under the current Olympic model, when spectators from all over the world fly to the same city to watch the event, the large amount of carbon emissions generated by long-distance travel has always been unavoidable for the low-carbon goal of the Paris Olympics.
Millions of spectators gathered in Paris to watch the games and have one of the most memorable summers, but the amount of carbon emissions generated was not to be underestimated|Xavier · Mali
How much carbon emissions the Paris Olympics actually generated, and whether it actually became the greenest Olympics ever, will have to wait until after the Games to find out. But when Paris advertises low-carbon as a goal to the world, it's a good start – it shows how decarbonisation can be done in all its facets, reminding us of how much of our daily lives are overlooked; At the same time, this Olympic Games may also set a benchmark for future major events, making environmental protection a must-have option.
This summer's most watched competition in the world is becoming a vivid footnote to environmental protection. Paris used the Olympics to show us that environmental protection is hard, but we can do something.
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[1] https://olympics.com
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/7/26/what-to-watch-for-at-paris-2024-olympics-reusable-cups
[3] https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/072324-feature-paris-olympics-to-lean-heavily-on-offsets-clean-power-to-hit-carbon-targets
[4] https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/cm52drr0lp1o
Author: Mai Mai
Edit: Yellow Pollock
本文来自果壳自然（ID：GuokrNature）