The winners and losers in the race to environmental sustainability: a ranking of Summer Olympic International Federation progress

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consolidate knowledge and benchmark the progress being made across the 32 International Federations (IFs) in the Summer Olympic Programme. Design/methodology/approach: A website content analysis, analytical hierarchy of information, and social media research was conducted to triangulate the barriers and drivers of environmental sustainability (ES) progress. This data was then analysed to empirically substantiate the findings of previous methods by exploring potential drivers of IF ES progress and communication and refining the ranking of IF ES progress. Results and findings: World Sailing is by far the most advanced IF in terms of ES progress, followed by World Athletics. Only 4 out of 32 have any sort of strategic ES plans. Only golf, surfing, football, sailing, and hockey have received any academic attention. There is a significant lack of understanding of environmental practices across sport, and their drivers/barriers. There is limited accountability with regards to ES progress and activities throughout the Olympic Movement. This has resulted in uneven diffusion of environmental activities. Originality: This paper is a new contribution to sport management and ES literature. It provides a benchmark of understanding for ES in the Summer Olympic Programme for the first time using a hierarchy of information to ground results. The exploration and comparison of the perspectives of separate sports adds to the paper's originality.

Strategic Sustainable Development in International Sport Organisations: A Delphi Study

“…The success level considerations are particularly decisive for organisational sustainability efforts, as they dictate the appropriate actions and tools that would support the implementation [6,30]. A similar finding emerged from an analysis of environmental policies across international sport federations [3] where the strategic choice was found to be a driver of the environmental sustainability progress.…”

“…We aligned the proposed responses with the FSSD levels, indicating different elements of consideration when planning and acting towards sustainable development. The study expands the empirical literature that focused on the status quo in sport organisations regarding their sustainability efforts [1][2][3][4] by adding a forecasting element and a holistic perspective. The findings reveal what items managers perceive to be top priority (versus lower priority) to contribute to sustainable development in the near future.…”

“…Moreover, the environmental regulation of the events under their jurisdiction hinged mostly on local legislation, implying the reactive rather than proactive sustainability strategy [31]. Similarly, Santini and Henderson [3] examined scholarly literature and online and social media accounts across 32 Summer Olympic sports federations concerning their environmental sustainability. They found that research on environmental sustainability was available for only 5 out of 32 federations, and only 4 had an environmental sustainability strategy.…”

“…Moreover, Swatuk [65] warned about discrepancies between what sport organisations claim regarding sustainability and the actions that they take to be sustainable. However, to address the policy implementation gap in the context of sustainable development, the international sport organisations must first issue sustainability policies, which at this point, only a few did [3]. Consequently, this concern seems relevant for the future but perhaps somewhat premature at present.…”

“…In particular, Morgan et al [1] examined the perception of Commonwealth Games Association's members regarding their organisation's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and a study by Moon et al [2] assessed international sport federations' sustainability practices. Environmental sustainability policies and actions in international sport federations were a focus in Santini and Henderson's [3] and Vrondou et al's [4] studies.…”