Hangzhou Asian Games fosters green lifestyles, contributes to carbon reduction

The 19th Asian Games is in full swing in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province.

Inside competition venues, athletes from participating countries are striving for excellence, constantly breaking Asian and even World records. Outside the venues, a special record has also been made by an environmental campaign.

The campaign, titled "1kg from everyone to help make the Asian Games carbon neutral," has been joined by over 100 million people, thus obtaining a Guinness World Records certificate for having the most participants in an environmental campaign in a one-year period.

A tree planting activity is held in Leidian township, Deqing county, Huzhou, east China's Zhejiang province to mark the Hangzhou Asian Games, March 13, 2023. (Photo by Li Xuan/People's Daily Online)

In April 2022, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (HAGOC) announced it would hold the first-ever carbon-neutral Asian Games. Working with relevant departments, it launched the "1kg from everyone to help make the Asian Games carbon neutral" campaign on Ant Forest, the official green public welfare platform of the Games, with an aim to encourage low-carbon lifestyles.

According to the rules, people can gain "green energy" to contribute to the Games' carbon neutrality through green activities like low-carbon traveling, reducing paper and plastic use, promoting energy efficiency, and recycling.

For every kilogram of "green energy" contributed to the Games, the Ant Group, the operator of the Ant Forest, will purchase an equal amount of "carbon credits" from the carbon market and donate them to the HAGOC, thus helping neutralize the carbon emissions generated by the Hangzhou Asian Games.

The Ningbo Xiangshan Sailing Center, Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang province forms a beautiful green landscape with the Tuci offshore wind farm. (Photo by Zheng Kaixia/People's Daily Online)

This environmental campaign, which has received an active response across society, is a miniature of a green Asian Games. The vision of green, low-carbon and sustainable development has been integrated throughout the Hangzhou Asian Games since the first day of its preparations.

The Games has achieved full green electricity supply at all venues for the first time in Asian Games history, and used methanol fuel for the primary cauldron tower at the opening ceremony for the first time, and transformed abandoned mines into the Shaoxing Keqiao Yangshan Sport Climbing Center for the Asian Games. The "carbon-zero engineers" have made specific suggestions to reduce energy use at each venue.

With the concept of the green Asian Games being translated into concrete green actions, it is believed the green ideas of the Hangzhou Asian Games will continue to gain momentum and motivate more people to practice green and low-carbon lifestyles, and thus leave a significant mark in the history of the Asian Games.

The methanol-fueled primary cauldron tower of the Hangzhou Asian Games is lit at the opening ceremony, Sept. 23, 2023. (Photo by Yi Fan/People's Daily Online)