Created by Decree No. 2017-1764 relating to the public establishment Société de livraison des travaux olympiques dated December 27, 2017, SOLIDEO is a public entity, in charge of the delivery of nearly 70 very diverse works: buildings, bridges, school groups, gymnasiums, swimming pools, etc.
The establishment, made up of around 150 people, has three roles: supervising the 70 sites for which it is responsible and developing public spaces and permanent facilities necessary for organizing the event, financing projects, as well as a role as developer of the Athletes' Village and the Media Village. Within these two ZACs, there are buildings (housing and offices) whose project owners are private real estate developers, as well as public spaces and facilities. The Athletes' Village will welcome nearly 14,500 athletes from July 26 to August 11 and 9,000 athletes and accompanying persons during the second phase from August 28 to September 8.
In order to meet an ambitious environmental strategy, wood was one of the preferred materials used in the construction and renovation of sports structures or those needed for the running of the event. It had to meet demanding criteria, including a supply from committed sectors, which resulted in the obligation to choose forest products from well-managed and certified forests.
Kelly Prevost , Environmental Excellence Project Manager, and Thibault Meynieux , Public Space Project Manager at SOLIDEO, answered questions from FSC France on this responsible procurement approach.
An ambitious strategy
"Our ambition was to make maximum use of what already exists and to only build or renovate when absolutely necessary ,"explains Kelly Prevost, whose role was to develop the environmental specifications for the works, and today to monitor the objectives set on the construction sites. "From the City of Paris 's application phase , even before the creation of SOLIDEO, a precise inventory of existing facilities that could accommodate competition or training sites was carried out , to avoid building new projects . This is also one of the reasons that led to the choice of Paris as the host city ."
Kelly and his colleagues therefore began by "thinking about the legacy", identifying the needs of the neighbourhoods ( schools , housing , offices, etc.) before thinking about how this international sporting event could fit in with these needs . "This approach will make it possible to undertake reversibility work after the Games , more or less significant , to match the new structures and developments to the real needs of the inhabitants."
Thus , this approach based on heritage is based on 4 environmental pillars : the circular economy , climate resilience , the preservation of biodiversity and carbon neutrality . It is within this last pillar that we find SOLIDEO 's strategy concerning wood and its more responsible sourcing . While wood is increasingly popular and recognized for its ability to replace more energy -intensive and less durable materials , SOLIDEO 's objective was to supervise the construction and renovation of structures dedicated to the event while emitting as little carbon as possible. Kelly Prevost explains: "Our premise was to reduce carbon emissions by half compared to the London Games in 2012. To meet this , we imposed maximum carbon budgets (known as bases) on our project management partners , then transmitted to the project managers , to encourage them to turn to low - carbon solutions. Wood met the objectives of carbon sequestration and substitution for carbon-based materials , and the logic of putting the right material in the right place for the right use.”
A 100% certified wood supply
Without having a precise quantitative objective on the volume of wood used in the works, SOLIDEO has nevertheless imposed qualitative constraints, with a minimum of 30% French wood (work carried out with France Bois 2024), and 100% certified wood." We have also strongly encouraged our partners to map their supplier network in order to ensure traceability of the wood from the forest, with monitoring carried out internally " explains Kelly Prevost.
In the Athletes' Village, "we estimated a volume of just over 17,000m3 of wood used, including 14,000m3 of structural wood and 55% of French wood in total ."The rest of the wood is European, or tropical for the developments close to the Seine.
The use of wood as a material in Olympic works © SOLIDEO
It is precisely on the banks of the Seine and on the Cesaria Evora promenade (formerly called Mail Finot), which connects the banks to the center of the Athletes' Village, that SOLIDEO has decided to embark on a partial FSC project certification process. The latter, obtained on June 19, 2024 (FSC-P002069) concerns the renovation of the structure and the wooden covering of the banks and the development of the RD1, an area located near the Athletes' Village. " We turned to tropical wood to address issues of flooding and the durability of the wood over time. Our policy regarding tropical wood is clear: detailed and verifiable traceability was essential ,"explains Thibault Meynieux. "The FSC project certification allowed us to control all the links in the chain and ensure that all the stakeholders were aware of the issues, right up to the company that installs the wood."
Thus, the species of Tali and Massaranduba were chosen for the decking and the guardrail of the banks, two species of class 4 to meet the challenges of sustainability. In addition to these two species, Padouk was also used for the Cesaria Evora promenade. "The development should last between 30 and 40 years according to our forecast models " specifies Thibault Meynieux. This work also made the RD1 more accessible, with the addition of a cycle path, and created places for walking and resting, with the installation of street furniture, and the possibility for barges to settle there after the Games.
© SOLIDEO-Sensee
Additional actions
In addition to this approach on wood, "we must understand that it is the multiplicity of environmental actions and the diversity of the actors who have supported us in their implementation that allow us today to achieve satisfactory results on all the works " summarizes Thibault Meynieux. "By thinking globally , by playing on the architecture , the circulation of the wind and the orientation of the buildings for example, we can reduce our consumption and ensure comfort in a passive way for the users of today and tomorrow."
The SOLIDEO environmental strategy is therefore the result of collective work with an invested and committed ecosystem to respond in a relevant and concrete way to climate and biodiversity issues. Other actions have thus made it possible to respond to the 3 other pillars of this global approach, such as the implementation of systematic life cycle analyses for all materials , projection work with Météo France to design comfortable habitats according to different climate scenarios, or the support of ecologists to adopt the best practices for preserving species identified near the sites used for the event.
Story by: FSC France
