Paris Olympics 2024 have finally came to an end. But the question still remains, how sustainable have the Olympic Games actually been? Are there any concrete examples of eco-friendly initiatives or has it been mostly greenwashing?
Attaining 100% sustainability may seem easy but that is not the case at all/ So I definitely appreciate the steps they incorporated like concrete sustainability. Their approach to using 100% renewable energy for the event and focusing on minimizing the carbon footprint by promoting public transportation were also pretty cool!
well, a big event of this size may boast of being sustainable, but it is actually not. No matter how hard one tries.
Well you’re right, that is a question. and technically it does remain bc you’re asking it. What answers have you come up with?
The fact that the water quality and pollution levels of Seine river has gotten so much publicity because of the Olympics, it might lead to some positive change locally.
Now, it is obviously up to France, the French people and Paris to do something about it. Interesting to see.
exactly what i’m looking forward to. lets find out if they actually get something done.
They did. Because of the Olympics Paris infested invested in new sewage system which should make Seine swim able for the general public starting next summer.
The engineering behind this project is incredible.
This is really good material: https://youtu.be/6R74cIJU05s?si=wvy1s0D9Vl4mexTS
I’m curious too. I heard about some eco-friendly initiatives, but were they truly impactful?
sure they are putting efforts but i’m not sure how real the impact actually is. they are constructing new infrastructure, so i’m pretty sure they contribute to environmental impact in one way or another. hoping it’s a work in progress at least.
No construction. Maybe the system for clean La seine. But it’s a good investisment for futur
Well, sustainable is difficult with such a mega event. It is important to look for eco-friendly solutions and/or reusable for public after the games.
But when I (as a German) hear about the x-attempt of Germany for application and how first thoughts of the officials are „no new buildings/stadium/dome for the games, the competitions will be spread all over the country for maximum eco-friendly games“ I think: just don’t waste any time or money on an application, please.
If it stays within one city, spectators can switch and move between different sport events, but if you have decide where you want to watch and then miss everything else… I see empty benches and no great summer feeling like in Paris.Olympics is a global event related to tourism. It will never be sustainable with the amount of airplanes flying in and out of the host country to carry athletes and spectators. What is true is Paris Olympics is more “green” in certain measurements compared to recent ones, and France didn’t need to rebuild infrastructure for the games.
One small comment I’ll add. My family, 8 total people between the ages of 9 and 65, visited the Olympics for 16 days. In that time we never once took a taxi or Uber. We were able to reach all venues through some combination of public transit and walking. We never had to wait more than about 10-15 minutes for a train (and usually much less) and had no major snafus like trains breaking down or getting lost etc. I’d say that’s pretty remarkable and I don’t know many cities that could pull that off.
The average parisian is jealous (they put the service on summer schedule today, I guess the Olympics strained the service)
The average Parisian has one of the best public transport systems, even with line 13 being broken all the time. I hope people are ready to drive 2 hours to each Olympic venue in LA, since this will be a reality on 2028.
Check out the 28 by 28 project. These infrastructure projects pulled ahead to be completed before the Olympics should help.
They will definitely help, but we are starting at such a pathetic level that even all those improvements will be nowhere near European levels. I looked up the projects on Wikipedia and a bunch of them are Express Lanes. That just means having to pay to drive on the freeway with slightly less traffic than in the other lanes. That’s not exactly an improvement, unless you are a shareholder of Express Lanes.
More sustaimable then most. The fact that they used existing venues or temporary ones brilliantly augmented by Parisian monuments helps a lot. I think this was also the cheapest olympics to cost the host in a long time.
To be honest I don’t think its fully possible to achieve true sustainabilty with the olympics but this year did a decent job of trying.
I was just wondering why the venues in the 2016 Rio Olympics are now being unused and going to waste. Aren’t Brazil a very sport crazy nation ? Can’t they conduct sporting events in those venues ?
Rio had some crazy levels of reusing existing venues and some of the more famous pictures of “abandoned venues” that keep popping up are those which were expressly suppose to be temporary.
thank you for clearing this out :)
Honestly, I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished with sustainability at the Paris Olympics 2024. I mean, we slashed our carbon footprint in half, harnessed renewable energy. guess its not perfect, but we are on the right track.