Two of the three biggest sporting events on the planet will dominate the summer sports headlines. The 33rd Olympic Games takes place in Paris (and a few other venues around France) whilst over the German border UEFA’s EURO 2024 is underway. Both events (and their organisers) have been keen to stress their sustainability credentials and hail the 2024 editions as their most sustainable so far. But let’s see how they compare.
What is sustainability?
Whilst many associate sustainability with climate change or broader environmental impact, this is in fact one of three pillars:
Figure 1: THE THREE PILLARS OF SUSTAINABILITY
Whilst we will come to the environmental pillar, let’s not forget the other two.
Sporting mega-events make a significant direct positive social and economic contribution to their rights-holders. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) generated USD7.6bn in the financial cycle before the Tokyo games- primarily driven by the broadcasting and marketing rights generated from the games. This facilitated a USD 4.2bn distribution to athletes and sports organisations around the world. UEFA is less reliant on its national competitions (which generate 21% of its revenues) given the strength of its club competitions, especially the flagship UEFA Champions League. Nevertheless, it is key to 15% of UEFA’s net revenues being distributed to its member associations.
But in addition to the rights-holders, mega-events impact upon the sustainability of the host organisation (and country).
For the host country, hosting a major tournament can provide an economic boost. Euro 2024 is forecast to generate $1bn in football tourism for the German economy (equivalent to 0.1% of quarterly GDP). This boost is from an estimated 0.6m overseas visitors, whilst over 2m overseas visitors are anticipated for Paris 2024. Certain sectors such as alcoholic drinks and TVs can see an upturn in sales related to the tournament, but it is not clear if these have any significant impact on the economy overall. There can be legacy benefits for a country’s tourism industry from hosting a major tournament which showcases the country as a destination. Longer-term social benefits can come from the skills and experience gained in those working for a and volunteering at such tournaments.
At the same time the host country will need to directly fund certain organisational aspects including the tournament security budget and the provision of fan festivals. For Euro 2024 it is estimated that German national and regional governments will provide €650m in support funding. Past tournaments have also seen host countries spend billions on infrastructure including new and refurbished stadiums, however the limited use of new venues will mitigate the cost of this in 2024 both in Germany and Paris. Nevertheless, a reported budget of €9bn was allocated for Paris 2024, split 50:50 between delivery of facilities and organising costs.
On this basis, I would argue that Euro 2024 is offering a better financial return on investment to its hosts.
How do you assess a mega-event’s environmental sustainability?
The most common and headline-grabbing metric of environmental impact is carbon emissions (CO2e), with the objective of minimising these and moving towards the holy grail of net zero. Other environmental impacts such as waste, water and biodiversity, are much less frequently talked about making analysis and comparisons difficult.
The absolute carbon impact of these mega-event is estimated at 1.75m tonnes for Paris 2024 and 0.49m tonnes for Euro 2024. Both represent substantial reductions from previous editions of these competitions. The average emissions from the last three Olympics Games were 3.5m CO2e. Euro 2020 (spread across eleven countries) had an estimated footprints of 1.3m tonnes whilst the single host country Euro 2016 had a footprint of 2.8m tonnes. However, these figures were largely driven by new stadium construction and renovation. Whilst it is laudable to be able to (almost) exclusively host major tournaments from existing infrastructure, the residual CO2e reductions from fan travel and operations are comparatively modest.
In an attempt to compare the impact of the two mega-events, we now scale these impacts across their activity bases.
| Euro 2024 | Paris 2024* |
|
|
|
No. of venues | 10 | 35 |
No. of events | 51 | 329 |
No. of spectators | 2.7m | 13.4m |
Overseas visitors | 0.6m | 2.0m |
Total CO2e (tonnes) | 0.49m | 1.75 |
CO2e per venue | 49,000 | 50,000 |
CO2e per event | 9,600 | 5,319 |
CO2e per spectator | 0.18 | 0.13 |
* Includes Paralympic Games
Firstly, if we scale by the number of venues, both competitions are remarkably similar, with Euro 2024 having 49,000tn CO2e per venue whilst Paris 2024 has a slightly higher 50,000tn. Given that Paris 2024 includes one brand new venue (the aquatics centre) with legacy value and seven temporary venues, I would suggest that the Olympics has the better of this measure.
When we scale emissions per event, the Olympic are significantly lower (and would be reduced further if over 500 paralympic events are factored in). However, this possibly the least meaningful comparative given that “events” at Euro 2024 are standardised football matches in large stadiums, whilst the 329 events making up the Olympic Games are not homogeneous. An event such as athletics hosted at the Stade de France could be compared to a match at the Euros, an event at a mountain biking course cannot.
Arguably, that the most meaningful comparative is emissions per attendee which takes account of the large-scale venues used in the Euros. However, emissions per spectator are 28% higher for the Euros when compared to Paris 2024, which in my opinion, puts the Olympics ahead on environmental sustainability.
What is driving this?
One thing that does not explain the Euro’s higher metric is the number of overseas visitors attending the events which are broadly proportionate. Nor is it explained by the use of existing infrastructure where Paris is using one new and some temporary venues.
Arena auf Schalke in Gelsenkirchen: one of eight existing stadiums used to host Euro 2024.
In fact, the answer is staring us in the face. Paris 2024 is a host city whilst the Euros have a host country. Therefore, events are generally fixed at one venue, most of which are clustered in and around Paris. This means that once in country, athlete and spectator travel is predominantly local in nature. The most notable exception to this is the Olympic football tournament where six cities across France also act as host venues and teams move around in a manner comparable to the Euros.
The relatively higher CO2 emissions per spectator for the Euros are even more remarkable when you take into account that UEFA is clearly conscious of the tournament’s environmental impact. It has taken a number of practical measures to reduce emissions from travel including:
· discounted inter-city rail travel for ticket holders;
· the clustering of group matches; and
· teams encouraged not to utilise air travel within Germany.
For a major football tournament, Euro 2024 has a relatively tight geographical footprint. For the Euros alone, I find it hard to be critical of UEFA and struggle to see what further practical measures could have been taken. The creation of a Euro 2024 climate fund by UEFA is a welcome move away from offsetting. It does, however, provide substantial food for thought for major sporting events with large geographical footprints.
There is a clear trend to enlarge the number of competing nations, teams and athletes at major tournaments. There is also a trend to spread the hosting rights (and costs) wider, meaning that larger footprints (often across national borders) are becoming more common.
Event organisers need to be cognisant of the need to balance the sporting, economic and social benefits of these expanded competitions, and their subsequent footprints, with the significant increases in emissions that will almost certainly result from additional and longer-distance travel.
References
The Euros and environmental sustainability; Fran James
Euro 2024 tourism to bring $1 billion to Germany, study shows; Reuters
How much does it cost to organise the European Championship?
Euro 2024- “The most sustainable European Championships of all time”; Johnny Oakley
Halving the Carbon Footprint of the Games
Can the Paris 2024 Olympics really avoid a construction budget overspend?; Lucy Barnard
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