From the controversial parody of "The Last Supper" during the opening ceremony, to some public gaffes involving South Korea and North Korea, the Paris Olympics has not been devoid of hiccups.

These issues aside, the event has also come under intense scrutiny for its sustainability efforts, with some describing it as "greenwashing".

The "greenest-ever games"?

The Olympics has long been an emissions-churning affair.

11 million tourists were estimated to visit the city of love for the Olympics, not counting the 10,500 athletes, 45,000 volunteers, and 20,000 accredited journalists, according to Statista.

That's a whole lot of carbon emissions generated from travel alone.

Paris however, has vowed to hold the "greenest-ever games".

According to the Olympics website, Paris aims to halve the carbon footprint of the games compared with the average of London 2012 and Rio 2016. As such, it aims to have a carbon footprint of less than 1.75 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

It has also decided to take into account all types of carbon emissions from the event.

This includes:

• Emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly (Scope 1 emissions)
• Emissions that a company causes indirectly and come from where the energy it purchases and uses is produced (Scope 2 emissions)
• Emissions not produced by the company its associated activities, but by those in the value chain (Scope 3)

This means that emissions from spectator travel will be included as well.

Constructing fewer buildings

Construction of new building venues, arenas and accommodations is one big contributor to a host nation's carbon footprint during the Olympics.

In this regard, Paris decided to use existing, or build temporary infrastructures for the games.

Only the Aquatics Centre was built solely for the Olympics.

This, Paris has claimed, has allowed it to reduce the carbon generated per square metre by 30 per cent.

These venues have also been built using recycled or reused materials where possible.

For example, 11,000 seats in the Aquatics Centre were made using recycled plastic, reported Reuters.

Too hot

One perhaps well-meaning but contentious decision though, was to forego air conditioning for the athletes' accommodations.

Paris promised that the rooms would be kept cool through a geothermal water system pumping cold water underneath the buildings.

The International Olympic Committee also claimed the building’s system would achieve a target temperature of 23 to 26°C reported The Guardian.

But in Paris' sweltering summer heat where temperatures have hit highs of 35°C, athletes have found the architecture and the single fan in their rooms to be woefully insufficient.

Prioritising comfort over environmental friendliness, countries such as the U.S., Australia, Canada, Denmark, Britain, Italy and Greece decided to bring in their own portable air conditioning units, The Washington Post reported.

As reported by USA Today, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief executive officer Sarah Hirshland explained:

"We have great respect for the work that's been done by the Paris organising committee in particular and their focus on sustainability. As you can imagine, this is a period of time in which consistency and predictability is critical for Team USA's performance. In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability."

Some individual athletes, such as Malaysian badminton player Goh Jin Wei, have done the same.

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Not enough meat

Yet another complaint athletes have had is the lack of protein on the menus.

Paris has committed to providing more plant-based food and sourcing ingredients locally, all in the name of reducing carbon emissions.

In fact, 60 per cent of the food served to the public is vegetarian, while a third of the food served at the Olympic Village, which prepares 40,000 meals a day for athletes, is plant-based.

However, merely a few days into the Olympics, the supply of meat and eggs started running low, and athletes lamented that there wasn't enough of the former.

The UK team even resorted to flying in their own private chef, the Business Insider wrote.

To Paris' credit, improvements were made immediately. "There has been a reinforcement in animal proteins, with 700 kilos of eggs and a ton of meat, to meet the demands of the athletes," Paris Olympics CEO Etienne Thobois said.

More can be done

A report by Carbon Market Watch, a not-for-profit watchdog and research organisation that assessed the Paris Olympics environmental efforts, described its climate strategy and commitments as "commendable".

However, the report continued that the "aim to minimise the event's carbon footprint is incomplete, and falls short of achieving transparency."

The report added that "it remains to be seen" if Paris' goal of having its carbon footprint halved as compared to the London and Rio Olympics is "truly compatible" with the Paris Agreement.

The agreement calls for limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C, and achieving global net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

Carbon Watch Market also called out the Paris Olympics organisers for being "relatively silent" on the carbon impact of air travel to the event, arguably one of the biggest contributors to the carbon footprint.

Some recommendations given for future games include providing ticket discounts to certain sporting events for international spectators that travelled by train, or include chartered train travel in ticket prices.

The report also suggested partnering with airline companies to encourage uptake of high-quality, sustainable aviation fuels.

Ultimately, despite Paris' best efforts and noble intentions, perhaps it is the Olympics as a whole that requires some relooking, especially in light of the persistent threat of a climate crisis.

As Jules Boykoff, a political science lecturer who has written six books on the Olympics, lambasted in an opinion piece for the Scientific American:

"It’s too late for Paris, but if the Olympic organisers truly want to be sustainable, the Games need to reduce their size, limit the number of tourists who travel from afar, thoroughly greenify their capacious supply chains and open up their eco-books for bona fide accountability.

Until then, the Olympics are a greenwash, a pale bit of lip service delivered at a time when climatological facts demand a systematic transformation in splendid Technicolor."

Top photo from jinweigoh / IG, Bholenath / X, and nicokeenan97 / TikTok