Before Paris, London Showed How the Olympics Could Be Sustainable

This week, the world will tune in to watch what is being billed as the most sustainable Olympic Games in history, a goal the organizers of the Paris Games aim to reach in part by refurbishing buildings instead of constructing new ones.

More than 90 percent of the venues that will be used for the Paris Games are temporary or already existed, though many of the buildings are old — including one used in the 1924 Olympics — and needed to be upgraded.

For decades, the International Olympic Committee has been stung by images of Olympic venues in disrepair years after the Games end. The soaring cost of putting on the games and the white elephants left in their wake had scared away potential bidders. Moving forward, the I.O.C. hopes that its ambitions for more sustainable Olympic facilities will lure other potential bidders.

The Winter Games in Milano Cortina, Italy, in 2026 and the Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028 will largely use existing infrastructure, said Marie Sallois, the director of sustainability at the I.O.C.

Before Paris, London demonstrated in the 2012 Olympics that host cities didn’t have to end up with empty venues long after the Games are over. Hundreds of acres of land in a formerly industrial part of East London were cleaned up to make way for the Olympic Park, public transportation was added, and afterward almost all of the Olympic buildings were disassembled or refurbished. The athletes’ village was converted to private housing, office buildings went up where sports venues had been and the stadium, aquatics center and velodrome were overhauled and opened to the public.