2024 has been a year with major sporting reach. A week ago, two massive tournaments of great importance for football fans came to an end: the #Eurocopa and the #CopaAmérica; and today, July 26, the largest multidisciplinary and international sporting event begins: the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Despite the spirit of unity and discipline they seek to convey, over time these competitions have helped amplify the message of #ClimateUrgency that has grown across different environmental, social, and economic settings, due to the increasingly significant impacts of #ClimateChange.
At the recent #CopaAmérica, assistant referee Humberto Panjoj of Guatemala fainted from heat stroke, and Ronald Araújo, a Uruguay defender, did not play the second half against Panama due to dehydration. In addition, at the #Eurocopa an electrical storm caused the temporary suspension of the match between Germany and Denmark.
These incidents represent just a few examples of the magnitude of the effects of the current #ClimateCrisis, and that is why, in the sports arena—whose events are linked to different types of pollution and social dilemmas—the Paris 2024 Games aspire to be a benchmark for sustainability in the world.
In their Legacy and Sustainability Plan for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, they laid out the 6 pillars that guide their strategy:
🏅Eco-responsible Games that harness sustainable solutions.
🏅Games that drive regional growth and appeal.
🏅Games that open opportunities for all.
🏅Sport to improve health, education, and civic engagement.
🏅Sport to improve inclusion, equality, and solidarity.
🏅Sport to drive environmental transformation.
Regarding the pillar on Eco-responsible Games that harness sustainable solutions, the objectives include: (i) ensuring #carbonneutrality and becoming the first major sporting event to have a positive impact on the climate, (ii) recognizing, protecting, and regenerating biodiversity, (iii) establishing a #circulareconomy, and (iv) strengthening #resilience.
To achieve them, the organizers pledged to control their impacts following an adaptation of the ARO approach (Avoid, Reduce, Offset)—with the variation that they include a new stage at the beginning, Anticipate, and another at the end: Mobilize.
Source:
Olympics.com. Halving the carbon footprint of the Games. Taken from:https://olympics.com/es/paris-2024/nuestros-compromisos/ambiente/juegos-neutrales-en-carbono
In the Anticipate stage, instead of calculating its #carbonfootprint to then report and offset it, #Paris2024 set a target carbon footprint representing a carbon budget that must not be exceeded when holding the Games, managing the emission of #GreenhouseGases aligned with the Paris Agreement.
As for Avoid, 95% of the event’s infrastructure is existing or temporary. And in the remaining 5% are those facilities that needed to be built and were therefore planned so they can be used after the Games and meet environmental standards (such as the Olympic and Paralympic Village, which, among its features, generates energy from sources such as geothermal and solar).
Then, in Reduce, aligned with the Anticipate stage, the Legacy and Sustainability Plan for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games states that “previous editions of the Summer Games emitted, on average, 3.6 million tons of CO2, whereas Paris 2024 has set its carbon budget at 1.5 million tons of CO2e across all major emission sources (construction, transportation, and operations for the Games).” Therefore, to achieve this reduction, they created solutions such as adopting ecodesign principles, a resource management plan, limiting single-use plastics, a responsible procurement strategy, among others.
For Offset, they will include those emissions that could not be avoided, and the process will be applied to environmental and social projects across the 5 continents. This category will also address the event’s scope 3 related to spectator travel.
Finally, for Mobilize, the organizers aim to raise awareness among their stakeholders about #ClimateAction, from supplier relationships to sustainability communications. And, in addition, they launched their own tool—Climate Coach—to commit to low-carbon sport.
So, listening to global needs around the greatest current challenge—#ClimateChange—the Olympic and Paralympic Games are already taking action. Undoubtedly, all the objectives and strategies to meet the sustainability goals represent a great challenge; however, their proposal shows significant progress toward integrating sustainability into sport and large-scale events.
If your organization is also willing to contribute to #climatechangemitigation and become a benchmark in #sustainability, schedule an appointment with us to support your process of measuring and managing impacts.
This example shows us that it is possible to adopt new planning and execution models to reduce the negative impacts of events on the environment and society. So, is it time to stop calculating and offsetting after impacts have been generated, and instead start structuring more carbon budgets to avoid them?
What do you think of the #Paris2024 Games’ sustainability aspirations? Let us know in the comments!