No AC but the ‘greenest’ ever Games? Inside Paris’ landmark Olympic Village

With no AC in the athletes’ accommodation, air filters lining the streets and beds made from cardboard, could this be the most sustainable Games yet?

When Paris last hosted the Summer Olympics 100 years ago, organizers were so keen to bring athletes under the same roof that they built the first-ever Olympic Village. It was spartan, made up of furnished wood huts, and it was razed shortly after. The competition is back in the City of Lights a century later, but French officials are doing something completely different this time around. As part of their effort to make Paris 2024 the “most responsible and sustainable games in history,” they’re building something that’s meant to last. “This village was thought up as a neighborhood, a neighborhood that is going to have a life afterwards,” said Georgina Grenon, the Paris 2024 director of sustainability. “Paris 2024 is renting it for a few months.” Instead of rooming in apartments tailor-made for them, athletes in the Olympic Village this summer will be living in what will become someone else’s home or workplace. Once the Paralympics have finished on September 8, the village — which contains 82 buildings — will be converted into office space for 6,000 workers and apartments to house another 6,000 people.