Alibaba Cloud’s Energy Expert Helps Analyze Carbon Footprint for The First Olympic Esports Week

Energy Expert, the AI-powered sustainability solution developed by Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has been trialed to measure and analyze carbon emissions from temporary constructions built for the first Olympic Esports Week.

Deployed through Alibaba Cloud’s partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the software-as-a-service tool assessed metrics including the impact of energy consumption, waste management, signage and decoration, and generated data-driven insights on the choice of materials and equipment for the event’s temporary construction. It enables event organizers to identify sources of carbon emissions, quantifies a venue’s carbon footprint and provides an integrated dashboard with online reports for visualizing sustainability performance.

According to Alibaba Cloud’s Energy Expert, the carbon footprint of temporary construction for the Olympic Esports Week 2023 is estimated at 274 tons CO2e, after replacing 60% of printed signage with digital alternatives which led to 14 tons CO2e of carbon dioxide emissions reductions, as well as reusing 50% of carpets after the event that would slash emissions further by 10 tons CO2e.

The popularity of esports leads to its growing environmental impact. According to industry analysis, a single esports team could produce up to 100 tons of CO2 emissions in 2022. Meanwhile, with about three billion people playing video games, individual consumption of CO2 is on the rise, as reported by DFC Intelligence.

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The partnership between Alibaba and IOC has already resulted in successful sports innovations for Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022. The upcoming event marks Alibaba‘s first large-scale international project aimed at reducing carbon emissions within the esports industry.

“It has been an honour to be part of this latest, historic milestone for virtual sport,” said Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “As the sports industry continues to evolve, we’re passionate about providing technology to make positive and tangible impacts.”