Advancing Sport Ecology: From Conceptual to Normative and Evaluative Frameworks

Abstract

Sport ecology is an emerging academic discipline that has been gaining traction since 2016. It exists as an interdisciplinary and interconnected view on the dynamics of sports and the environment. Sport ecology sits primarily in a conceptual stage, with preliminary developments into a normative one - or how sustainable sports should look and perform, from the release of sporting sustainability reports and strategies. The focus of this major research paper will be how to move sport ecology beyond a conceptual framework, into a more substantive normative and evaluative one. The analysis of the paper is both quantitative and qualitative from the conceptual framework to derive the quantification of how sports ecology fits into a normative and evaluative frame. The quantitative analysis contains a scoring evaluation of mega sporting events on a scale of 1-5. The case studies used in the scoring analysis will be the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the 2026 FIFA world cup. This evaluation will introduce sport ecology as more than an academic subdiscipline, but as an evaluation tool for sporting organizations and policy makers. This paper will broaden the meanings and dynamics of sport ecology and ways in which to advance it from being just a conceptual emerging academic subdiscipline.