By You know the green-sports movement is gaining traction when anthology textbooks/handbooks about the subject, made up of more than 30 scholarly articles, are published.
Enter Brian P. McCullough, Assistant Professor in the Sport Administration and Leadership program at Seattle University. He, along with Timothy B. Kellison, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Health at Georgia State University, are the principal editors of “The Routledge Handbook of Sport and the Environment.”
Here then is GreenSportsBlog’s first ever book review.
I thought the new “Routledge Handbook of Sport and the Environment” (click here for the link to the book) was the first Green-Sports textbook ever published. Brian P. McCullough, one of its two principal editors, set me straight.
He let me know it is a graduate-level follow up to “Sport Management and the Natural Environment” (Routledge), a 2015 text for undergraduate students by Dr. Michael Pfahl of Ohio University and Dr. John Casper of North Carolina State University (NC State). “Timothy Kellison from Georgia State University and I co-wrote a chapter in that book,” McCullough related. “Later that year, Routledge Publishing reached out to me to see if I would be interested in writing and editing a textbook for graduate students, doctoral candidates and green-sports practitioners. I enthusiastically said ‘yes’ and immediately brought Tim in.”
The duo’s overarching goal was to build upon what Pfahl and Casper had done and firmly establish green-sports as a legitimate sub-genre of academic research and scholarship within sport or environmental management. What resulted is a 34 chapter anthology, with 46 contributors — some who have written on green-sports before, as well as others who have written on sport or environmental management.
My main takeaways after reading a smorgasbord of six of the 34 chapters, are that “Routledge Handbook of Sport and the Environment”:
- Demonstrates that green-sports as a “thing” has moved beyond its “start up,” 1.0 phase to its “early growth,” 2.0 phase. Green-sports is clearly still in its early days, certainly in terms of broad fan awareness and also as far as environmental actions on the ground are concerned — the percentages of LEED certified stadia/arenas and Zero-Waste games are still relatively low at this point. That said, sustainability has taken root within the sports industry — the NHL’s carbon neutral seasons, more LEED certified stadia/arenas being built every year, and LED lighting becoming commonplace, are but three of many examples. This handbook’s mere existence and, even more so, its 34 chapters of meticulously researched green-sports scholarship demonstrates the topic’s depth, its diverse avenues for study and also its interest for academics. It is an important marker of green-sports’ increasing maturity.
- Will serve as an important text for sport and/or environmental management graduate students. In particular for those pursuing sport management, the text can provide a solid grounding in sustainability that they then can bring to jobs with teams, leagues and venues, thus deepening sustainability’s roots within those organizations.
- Can be a valuable reference for sustainability practitioners, operations professionals, and communications executives at sports leagues, teams and venues. It provides rigorously researched examples of a wide variety of environmentally-focused initiatives that can be built upon by teams and venues currently sitting on the green-sports sidelines.
- Will lay the groundwork for future, more refined and meaningful green-sports scholarship and textbooks. McCullough’s and Kellison’s work shows that the state of academic research at the intersection of Green & Sports is in its early days, reflecting the newness of the field overall.
Here is a quick synopsis of the six chapters mentioned above:
Chapter 3: “Economics, sports and environment: incentives and intersections”
Allen R. Sanderson, an authority on sports economics issues and the author of the “On Economics” column for Chicago Life magazine, and Dr. Sabina L. Shaikh, a behavioral economist and director of the Environmental Studies program at the University of Chicago, examine the three-way intersection as it applies (or doesn’t) to the Olympics, NFL, auto racing, tennis, golf, and college athletics.
According to McCullough, “[Allen and Dr. Shaikh] use this chapter set the stage for how and why different sets of fans engage or don’t engage in sustainable behaviors and what can be done to ‘move the needle’.”
Chapter 5: “Climate change and the future of international events: A case of the Olympic and Paralympic Games”
Will past Olympic and Paralympic Games host cities be suitable venues in a climate changed world in 2100? Dr. Lisa M DeChano-Cook, Associate Professor of Geography at Western Michigan University and Dr. Fred M. Shelley, Professor of Geography at the University of Oklahoma take that on in Chapter 5.
The authors calculated estimated February and August 2100 temperatures by assuming average temperature increases of 1°C and 4°C. They also took into account potential sea level rise by 2100 of 0.3 meters at the low end and 1.2 meters at the high end.
With those parameters, prior Winter Olympic and Paralympic venues Sochi, Squaw Valley, and Torino are likely to be unsuitable hosts in 2100 in both the low and high scenarios. Calgary, Lake Placid, Lillehammer, Sapporo and St. Moritz are likely to be suitable in both scenarios. Every other Winter Olympic site is predicted to be either be unsuitable and/or “at risk” in at least the high temperature rise case if not both.
Athens, Rio and Tokyo (the site of the 2020 Games) are seen by the authors as likely being unsuitable Summer Games hosts in 2100 in both the low and high temperature rise cases. Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Los Angeles, the host in 2028, are all unlikely to make the grade in 2100 due to sea level rise. Best bets among prior host cities to be able to host in 2100 include Berlin, London, Melbourne, Mexico City (a surprise to yours truly), Munich, Paris (the 2024 host), Stockholm and Sydney.
Chapter 10: “Marketing sustainability through sport: The importance of target market insights”
McCullough didn’t have to go far to find one contributor — Dr. Galen T. Trail, a colleague at Seattle University. They cowrote “Marketing sustainability through sport: The importance of target market insights.” In it, Trail and McCullough use data collected from a 10-mile running event to determine that different market segments respond differently to sustainability-focused engagement initiatives (i.e. recycling, offsetting travel related emissions).
The researchers went beyond basic demographics (i.e. income, age) to delve into psychographics: values and attitudes; activities, interests and opinions; lifestyle, and more to determine how committed people who participated in or attended the race would be to taking different environmental actions.
Chapter 22: “Tailgating and air quality”
A possible linkage between “Tailgating and air quality” is examined by the aforementioned Dr. Jonathan M. Casper of NC State and his colleague, Dr. Kyle S. Bunds. The chapter represents the first attempt to understand the impacts of air pollution, if any, on tailgaters.
Thanks to a grant from the EPA, the authors were able to design an innovative study that would be conducted in and around Carter Finley Stadium, home of NC State football during the 2015 season. They used five stationery monitors to capture ambient air every 10 seconds at the perimeter of the tailgating parking lots. Another mobile device measured exposure to pollutants inside the lots and also in the stadium itself.
The stationery monitors showed that air pollution levels were in the healthy range during pre-game tailgating — this was somewhat surprising to me — and while the game was going on. But they spiked to unhealthy levels after the game when fans exiting the parking lots at roughly the same time lead to significant traffic congestion. The mobile devices showed similar results — “fair” air quality in the tailgating areas with spikes in CO₂ and carbon monoxide (CO) due to “flowing traffic, idling vehicles, generators (particularly older generators), and charcoal grills.”
The authors offer some ideas on how venue operators can encourage fans to reduce emissions. This study seems like the tip of the iceberg for what could promise to be a rich area of inquiry.
Chapter 25: “Sport participation to create a deeper environmental identity with pro-environmental behaviors”
Drs. Vinathe Sharma-Brymer, an inter-disciplinary educator working in Australia, England and India; Tonia Gray, a senior researcher at the Centre for Educational Research at the University of Western Sydney; and Eric Brymer, a Reader at the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University, teamed up to show how, if managed effectively, participation in some outdoor and adventure sports (OAS) can cultivate a deeper environmental identity and pro-environmental behaviors. In fact, some political conservatives who become OAS enthusiasts may less likely to become climate change deniers.
Chapter 34: “A pragmatic perspective on the future of sustainability in sport
Messrs. McCullough and Kellison close the handbook with their assessment of the current state of play of green-sports and where the field is likely to go. Their main conclusion is that, for green-sports to become more than a small, niche movement will require “those interested in mainstreaming environmental sustainability…to press the many organizations that have committed either halfheartedly or not at all…through economic incentives, social pressures, or legal mandates. Until then, the promise of sport as a powerful vehicle for environmental change will remain unfulfilled.”
Couldn’t have set it better myself.
Click here for a link to chapter 34.
The “Routledge Handbook of Sport and the Environment”, edited by Brian P. McCullough and Timothy B. Kellison, published by Routledge, can be purchased on Amazon and Google Books.
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