We’re sure everyone has seen the Paris Olympics (or at least, knows of it!). The Paris Olympics involved many different sports and events! Ranging from gymnastics (with our very own Simone Biles!) to controversies regarding the Seine, many interesting things happened, but let’s focus on one key aspect - sustainability. Oftentimes Olympics don’t stress on this kind of thing (it’s all about the sports, of course!), but with the temperatures rising globally, the whole world, especially the Olympics, is thinking about reducing our contribution to greenhouse emissions.
What type of sustainability was practiced at the Olympics?
At this year’s Olympics, the organization was saying they wished to have more sustainability present in their program, and one of the ways they were going to demonstrate this was through their Aquatic Center. According to the Olympics organization, they featured a “4,680 sq. metre solar panel roof, providing around 20 percent of the venue’s electricity needs”(Olympics). Solar panels are really beneficial as a renewable energy resource, utilizing the sun for energy rather than fossil fuels. The Aquatic Center has seats made from bottle caps and added air filtration from the outdoors, requiring less electricity to be used in order to filter air. Another way they practiced sustainability was in the Olympics Village – a place where all the athletes stayed for the duration of the event. Construction materials used were “wood and recycled plastic, with all wood sourced from eco-managed forests”(Olympics). They also used French wood, which is a biologically sourced material. The Olympics organization also had a geothermal system (using the Earth’s heat as a source according to Energy.gov) rather than a typical air conditioning system. They also included MANY trees – “1,000 large trees and nearly 8,000 young trees and shrubs”(Olympics) were planted. In their catering, they wanted to emphasize 50% less usage in single-use plastic, and allowed spectators to take in reusable bottles, which in general is really good for the environment. All of these are great in theory, of course, yet it gave people the false impression that the Olympics were truly trying to make the environment more cleanly. Hearing these things from such a big corporation likely would lead you to think that they’re being true in their motivations, but what is really important is execution, which did not turn out to be as great.
Some of the opinions on this...
While this definitely seemed like an amazing thing for the Paris Olympics to do (no Olympic has publicly put THIS much focus in environmental sustainability) people have many opinions on how they handled it. A Scientific American article criticized the Olympics, calling what they’re doing green capitalism, using these as their reasons: “...if the Olympics truly want to be sustainable, the Games need to reduce their size, limit the number of tourists who travel from afar, thoroughly greenify their capacious supply chains and open up their eco-books for bona fide accountability”(Scientific American). The author of this article, Jules Boycoff, DOES have a point – super large events such as the Olympics do amass lots of people from all over the world and the thing that makes that happen is transportation! A lot of flights will go through just for this event alone, though that’s always the case – but there’s a huge amount of traffic and people on the road when these events happen. According to a 2018 Clean Energy Wire article that was cited by Scientific American, more than 85 of greenhouse gas emissions related to major sporting events are from travelers near and far! And with the Paris Olympics even today, this still definitely can be a problem since so many people come to the games. The author goes on to describe that the plans for sustainability were really not well-thought out and the Paris Olympics were actually causing environmental issues – in Tahiti, the location of the surfing competition, there were coral reefs damaged by the installation of a not-really-necessary tower. It’s pretty hypocritical for the Paris Olympics to say that they’re for environmental sustainability when they’re directly hurting ecosystems. Not only that, but Paris 2024 made a temporary skatepark out of concrete, which is one of the worst materials for the planet. Concrete, according to Wall Street Journal, accounts for “more than 7% of global carbon emissions”(Wall Street Journal). Doing these things while “preaching” sustainability is just a bad look for the Olympics committee, essentially greenwashing (being deceptively eco-friendly, thus distracting people from real solutions to fix the environment as the UN puts it). Greenwashing from these companies, when revealed, just show people that at the end of the day, ‘if the big corporations are doing this, what’s the point of my contributions towards the betterment of this world’s ecosystem?’
What's the solution?
Considering the absolute size of the Olympics, solutions to these issues presented seem very hard to achieve. Though, many people are speaking about it – including the Olympians themselves! Remember how the Olympics committee wanted to reduce single-use plastic? Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well – their sponsor Coca-Cola could not install hundreds of water fountains and so just resorted to pouring drinks from plastic cups into reusable ones, not helping the whole cause for their plan as Plastic Pollution Coalition puts it. So, in response to this, many Olympians (over 100!) signed a petition calling on companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and more to “adopt reuse as a global standard for their products instead of just focusing on recycling”(Plastic Pollution Coalition). They even cited research conducted by Oceana, stating that even a 10% increase in reusable drink manufacturing by 2030 would get rid of more than 1 trillion plastic cups or bottles being produced. The Olympics committee has to focus on the root of the problem, not so much the ways to fix it, and so does its sponsors. And you may be wondering: “I’m just one person that doesn’t really have global influence. What can I do?” Where you come into the equation is speaking out! Talk about these companies, and spread the word about what they’re doing. We also need to call out what the Olympics committee has done with their environmental damage – if this is what they’re doing, then their intentions are not really all that clear and good anymore. More people should take notice of these problems, since there is most definitely strength in numbers. People can make the Olympics committee act and create solutions that are not as globally damaging, but they need to speak out if they want change. Hopefully, prior to the LA 2028 Olympics held, we will have implemented some new things that actively help the environment, and help things move forward with our planet! Things may not seem very optimistic when you have companies like this committing such acts, but maintain your support. Keep speaking out for the betterment of this world!