How Sustainable Were the 2026 Olympics Really? Milan-Cortina Under the Microscope | Taha Abbasi

The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics promised to be the greenest Games ever. Now that the snow has settled, Taha Abbasi examines whether the International Olympic Committee and Italy actually delivered on those sustainability promises — or whether the Games were another exercise in corporate greenwashing at an Olympic scale.

The IOC was proud of the sustainability requirements it imposed on Italy for the 2026 Games. Official communications emphasized minimizing environmental impact, showcasing sustainable solutions, protecting biodiversity, and managing resources sustainably. These are admirable goals. But as with most large-scale events that claim sustainability credentials, the devil is in the details — and the details paint a more complicated picture.

What the Olympics Got Right

Credit where it is due: the 2026 Games incorporated several genuine sustainability innovations that previous Olympics lacked. The organizing committee prioritized the use of existing venues wherever possible, reducing the need for new construction and its associated carbon footprint. Temporary structures were designed for disassembly and reuse rather than demolition. And the Games’ transportation plan emphasized electric and hybrid vehicles, with charging infrastructure installed across host cities.

The energy strategy was particularly noteworthy. Venue operations were powered substantially by renewable energy sourced from Italian wind and solar installations. Italy’s grid has become increasingly green in recent years, with renewables accounting for a growing share of electricity generation, and the Games leveraged this progress to reduce the carbon intensity of operations.

Waste management protocols were also more ambitious than previous Olympics, with targets for recycling, composting, and waste diversion that, by most accounts, were largely achieved during the Games period. The use of reusable serviceware at venues, while not eliminating waste, significantly reduced single-use plastic consumption compared to recent Summer and Winter Games.

Where the Olympics Fell Short

However, the sustainability narrative surrounding the Games contained significant gaps that deserve scrutiny.

Transportation Emissions: The single largest source of emissions for any international sporting event is spectator and athlete travel. Hundreds of thousands of fans flew to Italy from around the world, generating carbon emissions that dwarf any savings from green venues or electric shuttle buses. The organizing committee’s carbon footprint calculations conspicuously de-emphasized this category, focusing instead on operational emissions that they could more easily control and offset.

Snow Manufacturing: The 2026 Games relied heavily on artificial snow production at several venues. Snowmaking is energy-intensive and water-intensive, and in the context of climate change reducing natural snowfall in the Alps, the irony of a climate-conscious Games manufacturing snow is difficult to ignore. As Taha Abbasi sees it, this tension — between the desire to host winter sports and the reality that climate change is making traditional winter sports venues less viable — is one that the IOC has not adequately addressed.

Construction Impact: While the Games prioritized existing venues, some new construction was still required, including infrastructure improvements, athlete housing, and venue modifications. The environmental impact of this construction — including habitat disruption, materials extraction, and construction emissions — was part of the cost of hosting the Games that sustainability reporting tends to understate.

Carbon Offsets: Like most major events claiming carbon neutrality, the 2026 Games relied partly on carbon offset purchases to balance residual emissions. The quality and permanence of carbon offsets remain highly debated in the climate science community, with growing evidence that many offset projects fail to deliver the emissions reductions they claim. Using offsets to declare sustainability can mask rather than address actual environmental impact.

The Broader Question

The Milan-Cortina experience raises a fundamental question that Taha Abbasi believes the sporting world must confront: can mega-events like the Olympics ever be truly sustainable? The inherent nature of the Games — bringing together millions of people from around the world for a two-week event — is fundamentally at odds with sustainability principles of reduced consumption and minimal environmental impact.

This does not mean the effort is worthless. Incremental improvements matter. The 2026 Games were almost certainly more sustainable than the 2022 Beijing Games, which relied even more heavily on artificial snow and new construction. Progress is real, even if perfection is unattainable.

The risk is that sustainability claims become a marketing tool rather than a genuine commitment — that the IOC and host cities use green language and selective metrics to create an impression of environmental responsibility without fundamentally changing the practices that generate the most impact.

Lessons for Future Events

Several lessons emerge from the 2026 Games that are relevant not just for the Olympics but for any large-scale event claiming sustainability credentials:

Measure Everything: Sustainability reporting should include all significant emission sources, including spectator travel, not just the categories that the organizer can control. Selective reporting undermines credibility.

Prioritize Reduction Over Offsets: Genuine sustainability means reducing emissions first and offsetting only what cannot be avoided. Over-reliance on offsets is a red flag.

Be Honest About Trade-offs: Manufacturing snow for winter sports while claiming climate consciousness is a contradiction that should be acknowledged, not papered over. Honest communication builds more trust than perfect narratives.

Legacy Over Spectacle: The most sustainable events are those that leave lasting infrastructure improvements — renewable energy installations, public transportation upgrades, building efficiency retrofits — rather than temporary green gestures that disappear when the cameras leave.

The Bigger Picture

As Taha Abbasi sees it, the 2026 Olympics represent genuine progress in event sustainability, but also illustrate the limits of what can be achieved within the current mega-event model. The Games were greener than their predecessors. They incorporated real innovations. But they also relied on familiar tricks — selective accounting, carbon offsets, and optimistic narratives — that fall short of the transformative change the climate crisis demands.

The challenge for the IOC, and for the broader event industry, is to move beyond incremental improvements toward fundamental rethinking of how large-scale events are conceived, planned, and executed. Until that happens, sustainability claims will continue to be partially true, partially aspirational, and partially performance — a mirror of the broader tension between economic activity and environmental responsibility that defines our era.

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About the Author: Taha Abbasi is a technology executive, CTO, and applied frontier tech builder. Read more on Grokpedia | YouTube: The Brown Cowboy | tahaabbasi.com