Eco-friendly cement features on Paris menu for a greener Olympics

When athletes arrive at their accommodation for the Paris Olympics, they will find buildings where air-conditioning has been ditched in favour of a cooling system that uses the currents of the Seine to reduce the temperature.

By using more eco-friendly materials, such as wood and low carbon cement, and deploying heavy insulation, the accommodation has been constructed to be six degrees cooler inside than out. As long, that is, as the athletes keep their windows closed and use shutters during the heat of the day.

This is part of efforts by Paris to host the greenest Olympics in history, with organisers grappling not just with a financial budget but also a strict carbon budget. It sets a limit on the level of greenhouse gas emissions the sporting event should generate.

Paris aims to cut total emissions by half, compared with the London and Rio de Janeiro Games in 2012 and 2016, respectively. Organisers have been forced to “rethink” everything from food menus to construction materials, says Georgina Grenon, Paris 2024’s director of environmental excellence.

But the sustainability focus has prompted criticism. One argument says efforts to cut emissions are simply greenwashing for an event that is on course to generate greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.58mn metric tonnes of carbon dioxide — akin to the total annual emissions of 350,000 cars.

A report from Carbon Market Watch and éclaircies, two climate-focused non-profits, said in April that, despite progress made by Paris, the footprint of the Olympics was far too high to be considered sustainable.

The French capital formally announced in 2015 its intention to bid to host the games — the same year that the city hosted the COP21 climate summit, where almost 200 countries backed the Paris agreement to limit global temperature rises. This agreement, which has become the backbone of global efforts to tackle global warming, aims to keep global temperatures well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and, ideally, at 1.5C above them.

Grenon says the aim from the start has been to align Paris 2024 with 2015’s climate accord. This has meant much less construction, while what has been built has prioritised low-carbon techniques and materials, she explains.

In terms of new sports venues, Paris 2024 has built just one — an aquatics centre in a low-income neighbourhood — compared with London 2012’s six. Although a new basketball arena, inaugurated this year, will be used for the Olympics, it is not included in Paris 2024’s carbon budget as it was built regardless of the games.

Aside from sports venues, the new athletes village — to be converted to housing after the games — has been built with 30 per cent fewer emissions per square metre, when compared with a similar type of structure using fewer climate-friendly methods, says Grenon.

Should rooms could become too hot — in a 2003 heatwave, Paris temperatures neared 40C and France suffered almost 15,000 heat-related deaths — air conditioning units are available to hire.

With food, emphasis will be on vegetables and local supply, with 80 per cent of ingredients coming from France. A quarter of these will be from within 250km of the venues, as some events take place in cities other than Paris — for example, Lyon and Marseille. The 20 per cent of food from abroad, Grenon says, is in response to athletes’ requests.

Wind and solar will power the Olympics, with the organisers agreeing contracts for renewables to provide 100 per cent of energy. This will help cut energy sector-specific emissions by up to 80 per cent, compared with past games, says Grenon. There will be no diesel generators — the usual bedrock of sports broadcasting. Venues have been connected to the grid to avoid their use.

The carbon budget has been crucial to ensuring the games keep their environmental footprint “front and centre”, Grenon adds. Each director of the different aspects of the Olympics is responsible for working with their teams “to cut emissions and to stick to that”.

Big challenges remain, not least in relation to transport emissions. This is especially the case with spectators flying to the attend the games, says David Gogishvili, a senior researcher at the University of Lausanne, who has studied Olympic emissions.

Benja Faecks of Carbon Market Watch says that, while food emissions account for a tiny proportion of the Olympics’ carbon footprint, how to tackle the issue of spectators’ air travel is the “elephant in the room”: the organisers have been “trying to demotivate people to come by air, but there’s no more to it than that”. Faecks adds that it is unclear how heavily Paris would rely on carbon credits to offset its final emissions.

Grenon counters that the organisers’ research suggests international visitor numbers could fall over the Olympics rather than rise. Every summer, Paris is “full of tourists”, she says, adding that the 2024 spectacle is not expected to increase tourism as non-sports fans opt to stay away during the games.

The next two hosts of the Olympics — Los Angeles and Brisbane — indicate that they are closely watching the French capital to learn from its experience, not least in terms of sustainability.

Brisbane’s 2032 organising committee president, Andrew Liveris, says the Australian city is committed to “delivering a more sustainable games”. It will have, he adds, the opportunity this year to observe the Paris Olympics’ “climate and circular economy initiatives in action”.