The United Nations (UN) considers sports as an important enabler of sustainable development. The popular and fast-growing Participatory Sports Event (PSE) sector can play an important role in this regard, however, research that measures and reports sustainability in PSEs is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to construct and validate a research instrument based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, and to examine sustainability in PSEs. To this end, an online survey was administered among a representative sample of 303 PSE organisers, located in Flanders, Belgium. A confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the instrument and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. The results reveal significant discrepancies between the three dimensions, with a noticeable lower score for environmental sustainability compared to social and economic sustainability. Furthermore, challenges are highlighted in the field of the civil society sector and in walking sports events. The findings also indicate that large-sized events are more likely to be sustainable. The current study can act as a foundation for future research on sustainability in PSEs and can assist PSE organisers and policymakers to increase the sustainability-related performance of the sector.

Sport is recognised as a significant contributor to a sustainable future. Sport federations (SFs) in particular can play an important role in this regard. However, literature that focuses on enviro...

Research on sustainability and/in sport and, specifically, on the ecological aspects of participatory sporting events is still very scarce despite the recognition these topics have received by actors like, for instance, the European Commission and the United Nations. Against this backdrop, this paper sheds light on a field that is virtually uncharted in academic research, which is the environmental attitudes and willingness to pay for environmental sustainability of participants in participatory sporting events in Europe. In collaboration with the organizer of the Frankfurt Marathon, a study was conducted with a specific focus on German (speaking) marathon runners. In total 1764 data sets were collected with a German (1455 respondents) and an English (309 respondents) online questionnaire. Very insightful descriptive analyses showed that the awareness for the issue of sustainability and sport is still low and that ecological initiatives only have a medium influence on the evaluation of a marathon event. Nevertheless, particularly the German-speaking respondents indicated a high willingness to pay for environmental sustainability in general and for specific measures that can enhance the environmental friendliness of a marathon event, in particular. As will be discussed in the paper, these insights have important managerial implications and are a valuable basis for further research in this evolving field.

Environmental sustainability (ES) has generally become an important topic in recent years. In this context, interest in the environmental impact of sport events has also considerably grown. However, not much is known about how people currently perceive ES in mega sport events (MSEs) and if this influences their support to stage a MSE in their home country. To shed light on this question, a survey was conducted in Germany, which resulted in a sample of 917 respondents. The data show that about one-third of them think that ES is adequately implemented in the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup. Around half of the respondents state they are in favour of hosting these events in Germany in the future and multinomial logistic regressions reveal that positive and negative perceptions of the ES of the events are important predictors of support and opposition. The same is true for the perception of the overall brand image of the event. The findings have important implications for future bidding processes because they show that the further development of ES in MSEs might have an influence on the support for hosting these events in Germany and potentially other Western democracies.

Sport organisations increasingly frame their societal contributions through ESG agendas linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, the social dimension of sustainability remains conceptually underdeveloped and unevenly operationalised. This conceptual chapter addresses this gap by applying a four-pillar framework of social sustainability encompassing (1) equity, (2) well-being, (3) participation and influence, and (4) social capital to sport organisations. Moving beyond voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR), it positions social sustainability as a normative, systemic commitment to the structural conditions that enable societies to endure equitably over time. The chapter maps how each pillar relates to sport governance, athlete welfare and safeguarding, and community relations. It also highlights persistent tensions including inequitable representation, constrained athlete voice, performance-driven pressures, and exclusionary practices. Emphasising the interdependence of the pillars, the chapter argues that socially sustainable outcomes require coherent institutional integration rather than isolated initiatives. The chapter concludes by discussing methodological challenges in assessing social sustainability and outlining implications for research, policy, and organisational practice in sport. The chapter also includes two case studies on how environmental sustainability has been implemented in national sports governing bodies in different countries.

The implementation of sustainability strategies at the international level poses a whole host of challenges, which are different from the issues governing bodies of sport face in this regard at the national level. This chapter scrutinises the implementation strategy of World Athletics (WA), one of the first international sports federations with a ten-year sustainability strategy. The analysis reveals that the WA followed a mixture of an isomorphic approach by emulating the strategy of the International Olympic Committee, in combination with organic evolutionary elements, reflecting the WA’s own learning and context. WA has taken a highly formalised but selective approach to sustainability implementation marked by a range of key performance indicators, targets and specific requirements to event organisers. The chapter then examines two approaches to implementing the umbrella organisation’s strategy at regional level in Flanders and Finland.