Just this past month Munich held the Sustainable Innovation for Sport 2017 forum. During the conference, the Paris 2024 Olympic Bid Committee “shared its ambitious strategy for the most sustainable Games.” They hope that with this ambitious strategy they will be able to out bid Los Angeles for the 2024 Olympic summer games; this announcement will be made in early September. Their sustainable strategy involves: transportation initiatives, an app to help encourage sustainability that allows users to collect points, a bracelet ticket to eliminate the need for paper tickets, social and environmental initiatives enforced for all hotels wishing to be certified by Paris 2024, self service bus stations that run on solar power, all Olympic clothing being fair-trade, food that is locally sourced, and a waste recycling system (Paris 2024 Bid Partners). Paris hopes to host the games and “be the first Games aligned with The Paris Climate Agreement.” It’s exciting to see sustainability becoming a deciding factor in world-renowned sporting events like the Olympics. While the Olympic Games are often thought to be beneficial to the economy of the host nation, “most cities have ended up falling massively in debt after hosting the games”, usually because of the facilities required to host the Olympics (Investopedia). The Games can also be very harmful to the environment when the city is not equipped to deal with the overwhelming amount of people and movement within the city. Paris actually already has 95% of the facilities they would need to host the games, and have one of the most efficient transportation networks; a network they are still aiming to improve for the Games. It will be interesting to see what kind of effect these plans have on the bidding process. It seems like this could be a beneficial step for the Olympic games because while the games are exciting and memorable for the athletes and spectators, they can have extremely negative effects on the environment within and around the host city. It would be nice to see these plans rewarded, putting an emphasis on sustainability in the bidding process.
Article: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/leadership/sustainable_brands/paris_2024_taps_technology_most_sustainable_olympic_gam
Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/092416/what-economic-impact-hosting-olympics.asp
Paris Bid Partners: http://parcoursdurable.paris2024.org/en
Sustainable Innovation in Sport: http://www.sustainableinnovationinsport.org/
This is a great step in the right direction. While the Games can be a huge economic driver for its host city, as you say, these large scale facilities are often under-utilized once the Games are finished due to the myriad of costs associated with their maintenance, staffing, hosting events, etc. Maybe the Games can partner with a variety of companies that sell carbon offsets for the travel required by athletes and fans to get to the Games? I think it would be interesting to get cities in each continent to bid as Olympic hosts that will then be set, so that the facilities see more frequent use. It would be prudent, however, to devise a solution for sharing the economic benefits realized from the Games though.