Photo: Elise Robaglia
Paris hopes to host the leanest Olympic Games ever, with few new permanent structures in its wake. The Olympics sped up the city’s green transformation, says Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris’s socialist deputy mayor for urban planning from 2014 until last week. “We have transformed public spaces, public transport, the river – without the Games, it could have taken a decade or two more.” The list: 250 miles of new bike lanes; extension of the Métro network; clean-up of the Seine; planting 300,000 new trees. The €175m aquatics centre is crowned with the largest urban solar-energy farm in France, and half of the 6,000 seats made of recycled plastic bottles will be replaced with a bouldering wall, padel tennis courts and five-a-side pitches. Athletes’ housing is cooled by a geothermal system and the hybrid construction has reduced carbon emissions by 30%.
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