Driving Energy Efficiency at the Paris 2024 Olympics

With the start of the 2024 Olympics around two weeks away, excitement is building — and not just for the sporting greats.

The four-yearly sporting extravaganza — this year held in Paris, France — is poised to set a new standard for energy efficiency and sustainability when it comes to major international events.

Innovative energy initiatives and sustainable practices are being implemented left, right and centre to minimise the environmental impact of the games and promote a greener future, as well as to make this years’ games the most sustainable to date.

Paris 2024: Driving sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives

It’s no secret that eco-conscious partnerships and initiatives are at the core of the games as organisers aim to cut carbon emissions in half. This covers everything from the construction of venues to the competitors and spectators’ travel.

Based on the 2015 Paris Agreement, event organisers for Paris 2024 are creating a sustainable culture based on five key sustainability themes.

For the Paris 2024 organising committee, sustainability is a highly visible subject and has been at the forefront of their planning efforts since it won the bid in 2017.

It is learning from the last Olympics, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — held in 2021 due to the pandemic — where the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) post-event sustainability report declared “Tokyo 2020 goes beyond carbon neutrality and helps create a more ‘sustainable society’”.

“The Tokyo 2020 Games set out to raise awareness of the role of sport in society and our aim was to use the Games as an opportunity to show how sport can help fulfil our responsibility to resolving the issues involved in achieving a sustainable society,” said Tokyo 2020 President Hashimoto Seiko.

From the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games Organising Committee headquarters to the event sites, the electricity supplied by EDF for this summer’s Games will be 100% renewable, the French provider has declared. Certified of French origin, its traceability is especially guaranteed using a blockchain specially designed for the energy sector, it said.

A showcase of what is possible

“Paris 2024, with the first Olympic Games fully aligned with Olympic Agenda 2020, promises to deliver spectacular Games that are more responsible, more sustainable and more inclusive,” said the Paris 2024 organising committee.

“The organisers have laid out a cutting-edge plan to halve the Games-related carbon footprint compared to previous Games, with innovative solutions for energy, food, venues, transport and digital services.”

With this in mind, Paris targets a 50% reduction in carbon emissions, using the average of London 2012 and Rio 2016 — Tokyo 2020 is omitted due to its lack of spectators — as a baseline.

Off the back of this, the Paris 2024 Olympics has established a comprehensive carbon budget that encompasses all aspects of the Games — from construction and energy to transport, catering and procurement — and includes measuring indirect, Scope 3 emissions such as spectator travel. 

A detailed resource map has been created for each venue to minimise and manage the life cycle of materials, covering everything from spectator seating to sports equipment. Notably, 95% of the competition venues are either pre-existing or temporary, with new constructions utilising low-carbon methods.

Sam Booth is Europe Director of Sustainability at AEG, which runs venues including London’s O2 Arena, Berlin’s Uber Arena and delivers events like Rock en Seine on the outskirts of Paris.

Although he believes the perfect sustainable event is still quite a way off, strides being made should be celebrated and built on to work toward sustainability goals, he told sister title Sustainability Magazine.

“The perfect sustainable event is quite some way away,” he said. “But we can't really wait until a perfect sustainable event does exist to start tackling some of these issues.

“It's difficult to retrofit an old building and bring those up into the modern world.

“And until the whole transport ecosystem is decarbonised, there's no way that we could ever ourselves hit net zero.”

Examples of energy sustainability at Paris 2024

Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics, excess heat from Equinix’s IBX data centre in the French capital, PA10, will be transferred to the Plaine Saulnier — a suburb undergoing significant redevelopment and of strategic importance, especially ahead of the Games — and the Olympic Aquatic Centre.

Presenting the latest advance in its low carbon strategy, Paris 2024 proudly announced ahead of the Games key developments regarding its climate commitments in two key areas: reduction of Games-related emissions and support for carbon avoidance and capture projects.

To control, reduce and reassess its carbon emissions throughout the run-up to the Games, Paris 2024 has developed a method and a tool that now includes nearly 10,000 pieces of data.

It estimated the carbon footprint of the Paris 2024 Games at 1.58m teqCO₂ — lower than the target of 1.75m teqCO₂. 

“With less than a month to go before the Games, all the actions taken to avoid, reduce and control carbon emissions are helping to keep Paris 2024 on track,” a Paris 2024 report ahead of the Games said.

At the Games itself, a commitment to 100% renewable energy has been made, with the Athlete’s Village powered by geothermal and solar energy, drastically cutting down on carbon emissions and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Traditional diesel generators are being replaced with alternatives like biofuel, hydrogen and battery-powered solutions.

As well as this, urban mobility has been overhauled thanks to the addition of 1,000km of new cycle lanes and the planting of 200,000 new trees. This has been implemented as 80% of Paris 2024 venues are within 10km of the athlete accommodation, with an additional fleet of electric, hybrid and hydrogen-powered vehicles making transport easier and greener.

Maintaining meaningful change after Paris 2024

The legacy of 2024 does not end once the Games cease. Thanks to enhanced infrastructure, increased renewable energy capacity, sustainable practices and a community awareness that has grown because of the Olympics, engagement in sustainability here is setting a new standard for how major events can positively impact the environment and society.

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