This blog is part of our series on “Leveraging the Olympics and Paralympic Games for Local Development”. By sharing insights, best practices and success stories, this campaign seeks to inspire and guide future host cities and relevant stakeholders in maximising the benefits of such global events.
As Paris gears up to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the city that brokered the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change is looking to “walk the talk” by using innovative low-carbon initiatives. The construction of the Olympic Village signifies a pioneering commitment to low-carbon architecture, setting a new global standard for environmentally responsible urban development.
Spanning the towns of Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and L’Ile-Saint-Denis, the Athletes’ Village is set to achieve a significant environmental milestone. It aims to reduce the carbon footprint by 45% across the lifecycle of its buildings compared to conventional construction.
The construction sites for Paris 2024 are becoming an experimental laboratory, delivering urban spaces that are fit for the future – and the climate conditions expected by 2050.
A new regime
This ambition is aligned with France’s “RE2020” regulation, one of the first regulations committed to reducing not only the operational carbon related to heating, cooling and appliance use, but of whole-life carbon. This includes the footprint from materials related to construction, operation and demolition. RE2020 entered into force in 2022, with three main objectives:
1. To reduce energy consumption and emissions.
2. To promote more sustainable construction.
3. To improve resilience to more intense and recurrent heatwaves.
RE2020 introduces a reduction trajectory with progressively stricter requirements in 2025, 2028 and 2031. Through this approach, the regulation aims to provide stakeholders with a clear trajectory towards greener practices. Aiming to achieve excellent environmental performance, the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games serve as one of the first large-scale test cases demonstrating the feasibility of solutions encouraged by this law.
© Paris 2024
Embracing low-carbon materials for a more circular economy
The choice of construction materials is crucial to minimising the overall carbon footprint. Infrastructure for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games is being designed to make extensive use of low-carbon materials and bio-sourced materials capable of storing carbon during their lifetimes. Where concrete is necessary, low-carbon and ultra-low-carbon concrete are prioritised as they can reduce emissions by 40% to 60% compared to traditional concrete.
The same low-carbon approach is applied to building fixtures. All the doors and windows of the Athletes’ Village must be wood- or wood-aluminium based. The project also supports the use of local resources when available, such as load-bearing stone.
Timber is used extensively in the Athletes’ Village, especially in structures under 28 meters in height, where it is used as a primary structural material. The project secured 15 experimental permits (ATEX) to increase the use of wood throughout the Village. By mandating at least 30% of the wood be sourced from French eco-managed forests, the initiative not only advances the use of sustainable construction practices but also supports the local timber industry.
Located on a reclaimed industrial site, the Olympic Village’s initial development phase involved extensive deconstruction to maximise the principles of the circular economy. Unlike simple demolition, deconstruction allows for maximum recovery of materials. More than 860 tonnes of materials such as sanitary fixtures, radiators and lighting fixtures have therefore been given a second life.
Some 96% of the materials generated by deconstruction were directed towards recycling and recovery channels. In addition to deconstruction, there was also careful management of construction waste. A target of 90% reuse and recovery of waste from the Olympic and Paralympic construction sites was set and achieved, demonstrating a strong commitment to resource efficiency and sustainability.
Sustainable swimming
The Aquatic Centre, the only permanent sports facility constructed for the Paris 2024 Games under the auspices of the Métropole du Grand Paris, is set to host world-class competitions in artistic swimming, diving and water polo. Designed with low-carbon principles, the Centre features a structure made from bio-sourced materials, a timber frame that complements the future green spaces of the area, and a 5,000 m² roof equipped with photovoltaic panels. This makes it one of the largest urban solar farms in France. Its interiors, crafted from recycled materials, celebrate French expertise in environmental performance.
Global leadership in sustainable building practices
Projections indicate that under a business-as-usual scenario, embodied emissions – emissions from materials and construction – could rise to nearly 50% of all building emissions by 2050 worldwide. According to the 2024 OECD Survey on Buildings and Climate, 43% of responding countries indicated that embodied carbon will become a priority, and 68% highlighted the circularity of building materials as a future concern.
Yet despite this, only around 11% of countries that responded have so far implemented a limit value on whole-life carbon of buildings. This must change over the coming years, and the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games provides countries around the world with an excellent example of how this can be achieved.
The OECD Programme on global events (cultural, sports and business) helps those involved build a legacy of local development. We work with event hosts from national or local governments, the private sector, and cultural, sports or business associations to reap greater local benefits from such events.
Ji-Soo Yoon is a Policy Analyst at the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) where she actively contributes to the work of Decarbonising Buildings in Cities and Regions. Her role involves proving support to national and subnational policy makers in decarbonising building policies including energy efficiency in buildings, life-cycle approach (LCA) to embodied carbon, and the integration of digital technologies, all aimed at harnessing the building sector's potential to combat climate change through mitigation and adaptation measures.
Before joining the OECD, she worked in the energy division at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) where she conducted research on blockchain technology application for clean energy transition, mainly on P2P renewable energy trading. She holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the Geneva Graduate Institute (Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et du Developpement, IHEID) in Switzerland and a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from Ewha Womans’ University in Korea.
As an Ingénieur des Ponts, des Eaux et des Forêts (IPEF), Bunthan IEA is a project manager for building environmental performance within the Directorate General for Planning, Housing, and Nature (DGALN) of the French Ministry in charge of housing. His primary mission involves reducing carbon emissions from construction, particularly in relation to the new French environmental regulations for new construction (RE2020). He is also involved in projects related to the environmental data of construction products, especially the INIES database in France. At the European level, he regularly follows the environmental aspects of the revision of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), as well as standardisation work (e.g., P01E, CEN/TC 350, etc). Graduating from the École Polytechnique and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, he holds engineering degrees specialising in the mechanics of materials and structures. He has also completed master’s degrees in the durability of materials and structures for energy, as well as public policies for sustainable development. Before his current position at the French Ministry, he pursued a PhD focusing on developing a new method for evaluating the fire resistance of building structural elements. He obtained his PhD in 2022.