How the 2024 Paris Olympics could become a force to reverse climate change

Every four years, the Summer Olympic Games provide witness to the finest athletes in the world. Leading up to the 2024 Olympic Games opening in Paris, many of the Olympic athletes’ toil in relative obscurity, putting in countless, painful and excruciatingly long hours of practicing and competing to earn the coveted spot to go for gold.

Obscurity will not last long, especially for those athletes who get medals. Thanks to the ever-evolving world of technology, every second of the Olympics will be televised, streamed, and absorbed by billions of global viewers rooting for their home country athletes and propelling many to superstar celebrity status.

Just as they do in uniting the world through sports, the Olympics organizers, sponsors, official broadcasters and athletes can have equal influence on global human behavior to reverse climate change. It’s now time for the Olympics and its participants to use their incredible voices and influence to unite the world on what simple collective actions can be taken against climate change.

The billions who witness the Olympics are a willing audience, as they are the same billions suffering with the impacts of record-breaking global heat and tragic weather impacts. Here are three immediate, common solutions on how the world’s most watched sporting event can extend into a selfless call from athletes, organizers and advertisers for collective action to reverse the impacts of climate change:

Adopt a vegetarian-focused menu as a reminder to the world to replace meat one day a week

This may be the easiest step of all, as experts have stated if global citizens could collectively replace animal meat one day a week, we can make a major reversal of climate impacts. For cultural, religious and/or training reasons, many Olympic athletes adopt vegan or vegetarian eating plans with more emphasis on plant-based ingredients.

The Olympic organizers and related sponsors could both announce and heavily encourage athletes to promote the types of vegetarian and vegan options being offered to athletes, with reminders to all that giving up meat one day a week of our individual choosing can reverse climate change and impacts. (Plenty of meat options could continue to be offered to athletes who prefer animal protein in their eating plans, however, it would not be the central focus).

The Olympics and athletes could be peak fitness examples with their own diets and encourage their many followers to do it just one day a week. The volume of media impressions just on the menu of the Olympic athletes, let alone other coverage and posts by participants will quickly raise awareness of how a change one day a week can bring sustained change and improvement to the entire world almost as fast as the 440 relay.

Olympic opening ceremony on the Seine River can encourage walking one day a week

The Olympic Opening Ceremonies are globally among the most watched parts of the Olympic broadcasts, as each nation’s athletes are featured in outfits or costumes symbolic of their cultural heritages and values. For the first time in modern history (or ever), the opening ceremonies will not take place in a stadium with athletes walking by country. It will take place on the famed Seine River through the heart of Paris. More than 100 boats will carry athletes winding down about a 4-mile stretch of the Seine underneath thousands of fans watching from the river banks, bridges and river residences!

Every participating athlete could remind their fans that while they’re not walking in the ceremony, they encourage everyone to walk or bike one day a week of their choosing to help reverse climate change. By not using fossil fuel vehicles one day a week of our choosing, we collectively can immediately reverse the devastating impact of climate change and garner the consumer “gold” in added benefits of significantly lower fuel costs and consumption.

Ask each athlete to remind global consumers of sustainable clothing practices

The 2024 Paris Olympic Opening Ceremonies will also be different than any prior one by way of fashionable “costumes” during the opening ceremonies river parade. Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the “open-air event,” and his team – led by TV presenter Daphne Burki on costumes and styling – will make it the first Olympics ceremony to feature sustainable designs on the bodies of the athletes.

The Olympics creative team announced that for the first time, 3,000 Opening Ceremony costumes will be designed with their carbon footprint in mind. Just as fossil fuel auto makers of the past will convert to all electric in the coming decade, the fashion industry is making progress on how clothing is being made in more sustainable ways, starting with the very designers featured at the Olympics.

Designers involved include Ralph Lauren for the USA since 2008, Berluti for France, Armani for Italy, and many other noteworthy design teams. Their work will feature sustainable fashion progress as well as their creative genius. The designers and athletes alike can lead by example in encouraging consumers to be more mindful and sustainable in their consumption, especially with “fast fashion” deemed most destructive to our planet.

The 2024 Olympics has the unique ability to bring together the most influential people in the world with the rare opportunity to also reach, warn, and guide billions of humans on what they can do to reverse climate change. Collective action got many of the athletes to the penultimate position to compete on the global stage. Collective action needs to be encouraged by these new global leaders to get the world healing before it’s too late.

Michael Dru Kelley is a media entrepreneur who understand the power of media impressions and is a cofounder and a principal LGBTQ+ shareholder of equalpride, publisher of The Advocate. His opinion pieces represent his own viewpoints and not necessarily those of equalpride, or its affiliates, partners, or management.