“What could be” in Canadian sport facility environmental sustainability

Sport facilities need to consider transforming for ES as Etzion (2007) noted that all organizations are now confronted with the environmental degradation situation. This means that there is a need to shift to practices that support environmental sustainability (ES) or the safeguarding of the natural environment. To aid industries to transport for ES, several profit and not for profit organizations have recently devised voluntary systems or standards to drive advances. Some Canadian sport facilities, however, are engaged in various stages of transforming for ES, with or without participation in a standard certification program. The authors of this manuscript propose that a vision of where the industry could be can aid in transforming the industry. The vision offered is framed with the Precautionary Principle, Appreciative Theory, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Global Environment Outlook 4 (GEO4): Summary for Decision Makers (2007), an adaptation of Gunton and Joseph's (2007) manuscript “Toward a National Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada: Putting Canada on the Path to Sustainability Within a Generation”, the “Sustainable Value Framework” (Senge, Smith, Kruschiwitz, Laur, & Schley, 2008, p. 122), the Sport Event Environmental Performance Measure (Mallen, Stevens, Adams, & McRoberts, 2010) and the concept of Green Chemistry (Anastas and Warner, 1998 and Iles, 2008). It is hoped that the vision presented spawns debate on sport facility ES. Additional research is needed to advance understandings in areas such as “What is the end point being sought in sport facility ES?” and “What is needed in terms of ES programs, measurements and reporting to reach a desired level of ES?” Time will tell if opportunities were taken to fully generate an impact concerning ES.

► A vision of “what could be” is offered to aid in transforming the sport facility industry for environmental sustainability.
► Eight key frameworks were utilized to generate the framework for the vision.
► This vision aims to spawn debate to stimulate thinking and alternative approaches in environmental sustainability.