As our summers grow hotter, Europe’s cities are increasingly seeking new ways to provide their citizens opportunities to cool down. A river in the middle of a city can contribute a long way to that, but as the Olympic triathletes found out, it can be quite difficult to clean up river waste. Cleaning up the Seine is just one of many actions the City of Paris took to make the Olympics carbon-free and sustainable, with long-lasting positive effects for its citizens.

For example the city implemented a socially responsible purchasing strategy, committing to environmental and social innovation in contracts, with a special focus on the circular economy, social enterprises, inclusion of people with a distance to the labour market, and the creation of local value by encouraging small and large businesses to join forces in consortia.

In preparation of the Games, the Olympic Works Delivery Company SOLIDEO awarded 5 billion euro worth of contracts, covering among others, the construction and renovation of sporting facilities and stadiums, the Olympic Village, IT services, broadcasting equipment and services, the upgrading of the transport system, catering services, and official merchandise.

SOLIDEO committed to providing 10% of contracted working hours to jobseekers looking to reintegrate into the labour market and providing 25% of contracts to SMEs and Social and Solidarity Economy organisations. As of the start of the Games, SOLIDEO’s commitments have been surpassed, with over 2.9 million hours of work completed by jobseekers looking to reintegrate into the labour market and 37% of committed amounts billed to SMEs and SSE companies.

From a circular economy perspective it is worth noting that construction of the Olympic aquatic centre in Saint-Denis took the principles of ecodesign into account, and made a lot of use bio-sourced materials. In addition, the 5000 seats in the stadium have been produced using locally recourced plastic. The Department of Seine-Saint-Denis will further benefit from some of the Paris 2024 warm-up skateparks. One of them should be reused for a project in the city of Noisy-le-Sec (part of Est Ensemble) and administered by the municipality Moreover, Est Ensemble Grand Paris will reuse a swimming-pool basin from Paris 2024 for the construction of a public swimming-pool in Bagnolet.

Paris 2024 received the ISO 20121 certification on sustainable event management systems in 2022, and was also labelled with an “exemplary” level in compliance with ISO 20400 standard on responsible procurement. However, it will take a few years until the true sustainable legacy of the Games can be assessed.