Integration of Sustainable Development Principles in Sports Industry: Standards, Initiatives and Ecological Responsibility

Sports industry with global impact and numerous resources renders serious influence on the environment and society. The rise in event scale, increase in resource consumption and realization of global challenges, such as climate change, social inequality make systematic introduction of principles of sustainable development (SD) in sport extremely important. The goal of the research is to carry out all-round analysis of key mechanisms, initiatives and practices of SD integration principles in sports industry focusing on managerial standards, international programs and appraisal of ecological track. The article studies the link between concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development and ecological, social and managerial aspects (ESG) in sports context. The research analyzed the role of international standard ISO 20121:2012 and key initiatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (‘The Agenda for the 21st Century’, Rio-de-Janeiro and Bangkok declaration) in promoting SD. The authors systematized key types of negative ecological impact of sports industry and assessed their ties with the UN Goals of Sustainable Development (GSD) of the ecological cluster and conducted comparative analysis of CSR, SD and ESG concepts as managerial paradigms for sports organizations. A universal patter for elaborating strategies of sustainable development for sports events was worked out. In the research the authors used methods of systemic analysis (sport was considered as a complicated system), comparative-collative analysis (comparison of CSR, SD, ESG), benchmarking (comparison of concept characteristics), content analysis of international documents (standards, declarations, strategies) and classifications (systematization of impact types and their links with GSD), SWOT- and PEST-analyses of processes and events in sport. The research demonstrates progressing SD institutionalization in sport through introduction of standards (ISO 20121) and assuming of declarative responsibilities (IOC and others). Evolution from separate CSR programs to strategic integration of SD principles and further on to operationalization through ESG-approach was revealed that requires deep changes in business-models. All-round ties between ecological impact of sports (affecting mainly ecosystems of land) and widerange of GSD were identified, which underlines the necessity to prioritize measures of environment protection. The article substantiates the need to pass from spot initiatives to systemic management of sustainability at all levels of sports industry.