ENGIE and the French Tennis Federation have teamed up for a more sustainable tournament. The Group has supported the French Open since 2014, in energy matters to help the tournament reduce its carbon footprint. Together, ENGIE and the French Open are promoting greener energy.
From 22 May to 11 June 2023 (with the finals commencing on 28 May), ENGIE is bringing its sponsorship to life by promoting its expertise in the supply of 100% green energy, innovation, sustainable development and solidarity projects supported by the ENGIE Foundation.
As a leader in the provision of low-carbon energy systems and services, ENGIE is helping the French Tennis Federation (FFT) to reduce its carbon footprint and improve the energy efficiency of the infrastructure used for Roland-Garros. ENGIE has been supplying the stadium's facilities with 100% renewable green electricity since 2016 as part of its “ENGIE’s green electricity” package. It has pledged to supply the FTT’s facilities (the Roland Garros stadium, the Porte Molitor National Training Centre and the Jean-Bouin stadium) with electricity that is guaranteed to be of 100% renewable origin and produced mainly from hydroelectric and solar power.
And since 2011, ENGIE Solutions has also been servicing and maintaining the Roland Garros stadium's technical facilities. During the tournament, ENGIE's teams are increased twofold and are on site 24 hours a day for the comfort of athletes, as well as spectators. The services they provide involve managing the air-conditioning, ventilation and auto-refrigeration systems.
So that people can learn more about energy, ENGIE runs an educational event at its stand in Place des Mousquetaires.
In 2023, ENGIE will continue to install flexible photovoltaic HeliaFilms® made by our industrial partner Heliatek (European manufacturer of organic photovoltaic films). These will be used to supply the various areas across the stadium with carbon-free electricity.
This solution has already been deployed to three areas across the Roland Garros stadium:
ENGIE’s low-carbon solar solutions, developed in partnership with Heliatek, are based on one of the most high-performance production processes. It can easily be industrialised and is quickly economically viable. The technology is used to install next-generation photovoltaic films on buildings whose roofs cannot be used with traditional solar power installations, or on very light, textile-type structures, etc.
ENGIE has solutions on site so that spectators can stay connected throughout the day: there are more than 40 fixed stations – five of which are solar powered – for charging mobile phones, for example In addition to these stations, we also provide visitors with nearly 500 portable smartphone charging discs (portable batteries with integrated charging cables) that can be picked up from any one of the numerous Info Kiosks in the stadium. More than 30,000 phones are recharged at every edition of the tournament thanks to this service provided by ENGIE, making it the second most used service (after the toilets) that spectators take advantage of.
Since 2022, ENGIE has strengthened its partnership with Roland-Garros and the French Tennis Federation, and has developed a dark mode for the tournament's mobile app. This is a mode that you find increasingly on mobile apps and operating systems nowadays – it results in significant energy savings and improved energy efficiency. This is because a black pixel requires less energy to display, so the amount of battery power used by the screen can be reduced by up to 63%.
By using dark mode, the 800,000 users of the Roland-Garros app will be helping to reduce their environmental impact directly. In 2023, the official rolandgarros.com website will also feature a dark mode, thanks to ENGIE.
For Roland-Garros’ traditional “Children's Day” the day before the start of the finals, ENGIE gives tennis fans the opportunity to try a few serves on one of the tournament's official courts.
These fans include some 200 children from Fête Le Mur – the charity set up by Yannick Noah that the ENGIE Foundation has been supporting for 24 years. They will get to come and tread the clay courts of the tournament. This year, Children's Day will be on Saturday 27 May.
The ENGIE Foundation has been supporting “Fête le Mur” since 1999. The charity was set up to help breathe life into priority education areas by building tennis courts and training walls right next to blocks of flats so that young people from poor neighbourhoods can flourish by playing the game. The charity operates in around thirty difficult neighbourhoods in France.
The Group also sponsors women’s tennis in France and has been supporting it for 31 years. The Group has created the ENGIE OPEN label to help develop a more dynamic women’s tennis circuit in France. Over more than 20 years, the circuit has offered a platform for the best new French talent to go up against the best foreign players in their category and showcase their prowess in front of their home fans.
