How do international federations conceptualize sustainability?

Abstract

The presentation proposes to analyse how international sports organisations (ISOs) define the concept of sustainability through discourse analysis of their sustainability policies and strategies. Indeed, sustainability is an inherently political and normative concept that evades attempts to stabilize a single definition (Ramsey, 2015; Ruggerio, 2021). Two main understandings of the concept emerge from the literature: weak or thin sustainability that encompasses notions such as “sustainable development”, and strong or thick sustainability that tends to prescribe approaches de-emphasizing economic development such as post growth or degrowth (Ruggerio, 2021; Vos, 2007).

The study of ISOs’ sustainability texts will allow us to unpack the underlying assumptions to their use of the concept of sustainability. The methodology used relies on the case study of FIFA and UCI sustainability policies and strategies. I used qualitative coding to categorise the occurrences of definitions of the concept as well as the associated citations of documents and institutions.

Through the case studies, I will show that the main concept used by both federations is that of “sustainable development”. Both federations frame sustainability through the lens of “risks and opportunities”. This approach tends to relativise the predictable negative impacts by categorizing them as risks, while valorising the development activities associated with the sustainability efforts of ISOs. FIFA relies heavily on international standards and UN documentation to build the legitimacy of its strategies. On the other hand, UCI also cites scientific documentation and resources from the IOC. These differences will allow me to show that their institutional relationships to overarching governing bodies (UN, IOC) are partly shaping their conceptualisation of sustainability.

References

Ramsey, J. L. (2015). On not defining sustainability. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(6), 1075‑1087. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9578-3

Ruggerio, C. A. (2021). Sustainability and sustainable development: A review of principles and definitions. Science of The Total Environment, 786, Article 147481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147481

Schmid, H.-J. (2000). English abstract nouns as conceptual shells : From Corpus to Cognition. De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110808704

Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. AltaMira Press.

Vos, R. O. (2007). Defining sustainability : A conceptual orientation. Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology, 82(4), 334‑339. https://doi.org/10.1002/jctb.1675