Playing small, winning big: the contribution of sports to sustainable future climate solutions

This article aims to support sports and sustainability practices and research by describing an investigation of climate-related issues and exploring the sports industry’s capacity to promote climate action. The research involved the construction of a comprehensive sustainability framework for sports and identified components that may function as stages or indices of development in the Degrowth transition. The study describes how backcasting and the Delphi technique were used with a group of stakeholders, including sports and media managers, athletes, fans, academic experts, and federation executives, to explore the sustainability aspects that will influence the future of sports. The findings highlight the significance of balancing sports and technological development, including in the application of self-imposed limitations, while adopting a localized approach to reevaluating the role of sports in combating climate change. The findings underscore differing perspectives about the impact of technological changes and the role elite athletes should play in tackling such urgent challenges.