Startups Guaranteed Access to New Contracts Via the Olympic Games’ Social and Solidarity Economy

It takes an extraordinary amount of infrastructure to ensure that a major sporting event like the Olympic Games goes to plan.

That in turn creates opportunities for local businesses and suppliers – a concept that organizers in Paris have looked to put to good use in 2024 courtesy of their social and solidarity economy (SSE) initiative.

In short, small and medium-sized companies with a socially-conscious business model across France will be assured of the chance to compete for new contracts and projects – both before and during the Olympics, as well as part of its long-term legacy.

Opportunity Knocks

The 2024 Games should be a time of great positivity for Paris, the host city, and France as a whole.

According to the Olympics odds, French athletes are considered to be the sixth-most likely to win the most gold medals – behind -700 favorites USA, China, Great Britain, Japan and Germany.

Those Olympic Games 2024 odds indicate that France will have plenty to celebrate from the end of June to mid-August, and those feelings of jubilation will stretch to the business community as part of Paris 2024’s desire to offer local startups and SMEs opportunities to secure new contracts.

From the outset, the Olympic organizing committee in France have reiterated their desire to ensure the Games plays out against a backdrop of economic and social responsibility – reflected in their desire to work with startup firms that share such an ethos.

@Yunus_Centre for Social Business, and @Les_Canaux @Paris2024 developed a social and solidarity economy (ESS) programme for entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses. Some 460 local businesses have been contracted by #Paris2024 so far. More: IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) March 28, 2024

So much so, Paris 2024 has guaranteed access to projects for companies that identify as part of the SSE movement – thanks to the ‘virtuous’ business model that these deploy.

As well as pitching for contracts, SSE businesses will also be offered access to exclusive consultations, which will help them to grow whether they secure an Olympic tender or not.

According to the data, as many as 450 startups and SMEs (around 66% of the total number of contracts available) have already benefitted from the initiative, with more projects expected to be launched across the rest of 2024 and into next year.

Olympic Scale

Figures suggest that a staggering $5.3 billion worth of public contracts are available as part of the infrastructure of hosting the Olympic Games.

Paris 2024 have voluntarily decided to ringfence a proportion of these to startups and small businesses that fit the SSE mandate – a charter detailing how the Olympic Games would be delivered in France guaranteeing that at least 25% of all related projects would be awarded to SSE firms (a number that has since been far surpassed).

To offer some kind of scale as to what it costs to host the Olympic Games, Tokyo – when welcoming the rescheduled 2020 edition – spent an estimated $28 billion on infrastructure and other avenues of expenditure.

Hosting the Olympic Games are costing cities a fortune! The #Tokyo2020 #Olympics were originally estimated to cost around $7.3 billion however, recent figures show that this could be upwards of around $28 billion USD. Statista (@StatistaCharts)

And it would be true to say that hosting the Olympics is far from a profitable venture – indeed, the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro reportedly led to a $2 billion financial black hole in Brazil’s economy.

But there are other gains to be had from welcoming the Olympic Games, and startups and SMEs in France could be the latest to benefit from that in 2024 and beyond.