The Paris Olympics models the future of sustainable event management | Advancing Business

The 2024 Paris Olympics has been called an event management game changer—and with good reason. This Olympics is making a concerted effort toward sustainability, set to “halve its carbon emissions compared to the average of London 2012 and Rio 2016” (Paris 2024 Olympics: An Event Management Game Changer!, Blue Banana Events, February 3, 2024). Paris 2024 is achieving this goal, in large part, through circular economy.

Circular economy is non-wasteful: nothing goes into a landfill because everything left over is either reused or sold to someone else. As Saunders College of Business Professor Clyde Eiríkur Hull, a widely recognized authority on the topic, puts it, “Circular economy is high-tech, socially responsible, good for the environment—and profitable.”

These characteristics are crucial for the Olympics, a premier international event that is also big business, generating billions of dollars for the non-profit International Olympic Committee. However, the games often present a crushing financial burden for the host city, which must provide infrastructure, housing, security, and much more. In response, Paris has rethought event management in ways that save money, achieve sustainability, avoid waste, and provide a model for staging large events in the future.

1. Bong Vergara, co-founder and co-CEO of Young Moon, Inc., a firm focused on pairing social equity with sustainable development, indicates how Paris is changing the planning landscape for large events.

“The circular economy plays a crucial role in the Paris Olympics and future Games,” says Vergara, “by modeling how to reduce consumption as exemplified by the use of existing infrastructure to minimize the need for new facilities and reduce facility requirements while incorporating eco-design principles, like natural or low-carbon materials and sourcing locally.”

According to Organising More Circular Games (Paris Olympics Report), circular economy is a pillar of the Paris Olympics’ responsible procurement strategy, “choosing suppliers that incorporate a second life into their products. All of the temporary structures, such as the stands, marquees, furniture and equipment, will have a second life following the Games” (emphasis in the original).

As a result of this approach, the Paris Games are using 95 percent existing or temporary infrastructure rather than, as has been the case in so many previous Olympics, building new event venues and housing that become white elephants soon afterward. Also, these Games are prioritizing leasing or access rather than buying for 90 percent of items.

When building is necessary, Paris has selected “more natural or low-carbon materials, such as timber.” They have sourced locally and, wherever possible, have reused products. Importantly, they have worked with organizations “from the social and solidarity economy” (Organising More Circular Games.)

Says Vergara, “Ensuring the second life of event facilities is a valuable budgetary and social impact implication of the circular economy on large event management. Modeling how the reselling, donating, repairing, and recycling of event furniture and facilities after the Games and how doing these maximize positive spin-offs for the community while minimizing environmental impact shows everyone what a win-win approach for sustainability and resource optimization looks like.”

In terms of food and beverages, Paris is limiting the “quantity of waste linked to the event, thanks in particular to the deployment of drink fountains and the deposit system introduced for packaging” (Organising More Circular Games).

Power for the Games will use renewable energy—a first for the Olympics. In contrast with previous Games, which relied heavily on diesel generators, Paris has constructed a grid powered by off-site wind and solar farms (Paris 2024 Olympics: An Event Management Game Changer!). There are also on-site solar arrays, including one of 7,750 square meters floating on the Seine. In the spirit of circular economy, it will be repurposed for use in other parts of France.

Professor Hull envisions other ways the Paris Games, as well as other events large and small, could use circular economy to create a more sustainable future.

“Events typically buy souvenir garments from the lowest bidder,” he says, “and they get low-quality garments that may last for the event but not much longer – as opposed to buying higher-quality clothing that can be used longer or repurposed.”

“If they did the same thing with the furnishings, they could auction off the furnishings with the event logos and a tag saying the item was sustainably produced.”

Swag and food management are other obvious targets for circular economy efforts.  Last year, RIT’s Competitive Sustainability Center co-sponsored, with the U.S. State Department, a symposium to discuss circular economy in Asia. That meeting took measures to be more sustainable, including eliminating plastic containers for food and drink, as well as plastic utensils, etc. Swag included coasters made entirely from recycled plastic. This year they have eliminated swag completely.

The Paris Olympics made their commitment to sustainability through circular economy during the bidding process seven years ago. The overarching strategy was based on three key principles: “organizing the Games with fewer resources, making better use of these resources by promoting eco-design, and ensuring the second life of resources after the Games” (18 March 2024 Paris 2024 presents the first results of its circular economy strategy, Paris Olympics Press Release).

The Paris 2024 Olympics has set a new standard for event management through circular economy. In the future, Olympic Games, as well as other major events, can showcase “faster, better, stronger,” as well as leaner, smarter, greener.

Jacqueline Mozrall is dean of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Saunders College of Business