Editorial comment

This summer, the eyes of the world have been drawn towards the French capital, as Paris became only the second city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times. The 30^th edition of these Games featured 48 different sports, welcomed 206 participating countries, and is expected to have cost around €9 billion

It marked a century since the City of Light last hosted the Olympics, and although the 1924 event was vastly different to this summer’s spectacle – both Parisian Games have shown the ever-evolving nature of the Olympics.

The 1924 Paris Olympics were a landmark Games for a number of reasons: these were the first Games to have an Olympic village, use a swimming pool with marked out lanes, and the first to use the famous motto “citius, altius, fortius” (faster, higher, stronger).¹ It embraced change and looked towards the future – for example, the number of participating committees jumped from 29 to 44. Furthermore, it was the first ever Olympics to be broadcast live – welcoming over 1000 journalists. The 1924 Olympics was the first time the Games were a truly global event and welcomed change, which laid the foundations of the Olympics we know today.

Finding the balance of honouring the past whilst also embracing the future is at the centre of the Olympics’ identity – and 100 years after Paris hosted their second Games, the balance was still present this summer. There was an Olympic debut for breakdancing, and the dramatic boat-parade along the river Seine was the first time in Olympic history that the opening ceremony has been held outside a stadium. However, the Paris 2024 Olympics’ commitment to sustainability is where a focus on the future and embracing change really shone through. Perhaps one of the most talked about features of this summer’s Olympics was Paris’s ambitious project to clean up the River Seine. An estimated US$1.5 billion was spent to achieve this, which meant it marked the first time that an urban river has been used for swimming events at the Games since they were revived in 1896. It is hoped that the cleaning of the Seine will cement Paris’s brand as a new capital of sustainability – a place where cars and tarmac are ceding space to bikes, pedestrians and trees.² It was also the first set of Games to fully embrace the IOC’s strategic roadmap, set out in the 2020 Olympic Agenda – while schemes such as cardboard beds in the Olympic village have also been put in place to reduce carbon emissions.³

It is not just the Olympics that has embraced change, as the oil and gas industry is also evolving to become a more sustainable sector. There has been significant investment into technology to reduce carbon emissions – for example Chevron has set aside US$10 billion from 2021 – 2028, expanding Carbon Capture and Storage hubs in the USA.⁴ ExxonMobil have also embraced CCS, and since 2008 they have stored around 8 million tons of CO₂ in Norway, setting aside US$100 million annually for these projects. ⁵

The Olympics showed us this summer that tradition can still be respected whilst welcoming change, and as the oil and gas industry has come under more pressure, it too is embracing the future as it moves towards more sustainable practices.

Editorial comment

Jack Roscoe - Editorial Assistant