Sport, International Development and Sustainable Futures: History, Policy, and Potential

Abstract

To explore the connections between sport, sustainability and international development through critical understandings of the place of the environment within the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector. The chapter explores both the forces (historical, social, political, economic) and actors (the UN, IOC) that help to explain the current and increasing connections between sport and sustainable development, before assessing the current state of SDP through three themes: the place of environmentalism in development, sustainable development in/through sport and the trend towards ecological modernization in the sporting sector and beyond.

The chapter synthesizes existing literature from sport, sustainability and international development to provide historical, contemporary and future-oriented assessments of sport and sustainable development.

By framing the sustainability of sport and SDP in terms of the contestability of its political formations, such as ecological modernization, the chapter considers and discusses (potentially) sustainable futures, particularly those informed by the implications of recognizing a New Climatic Regime.

The chapter argues for a number of future areas of study that may push the boundaries of existing research in the area.

The chapter provides one of the first introductions of the idea of a New Climatic Regime within the context of sport and the SDP sector, and argues that within such a political frame, sport cannot exist separately from the environment. As a result, the chapter advances the argument that the SDP sector should now consider itself to be part of the environment, rather than steward of or over it.

Citation

Millington, R., Darnell, S.C. and Smith, T. (2020), "Sport, International Development and Sustainable Futures: History, Policy, and Potential", Wilson, B. and Millington, B. (Ed.) Sport and the Environment (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 13), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420200000013002