Environmental Sustainability in Sport Management Education

This study revisits and extends the Value–Belief–Norm (VBN) framework to examine how sport management students’ environmental values, beliefs, and norms predict pro-environmental behaviors and expectations toward sustainability practices in sport organizations. Environmental sustainability has become increasingly central to the sport industry, yet sport management curricula appear to lag behind industry developments. The authors argue that future sport managers must be educated and trained to address climate-related and environmental challenges facing sport organizations, facilities, and events.

The study surveyed 510 undergraduate and graduate sport management students from 23 higher education institutions across North America using an online questionnaire grounded in the VBN framework. The findings showed that personal environmental norms were the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behaviors among sport management students. Students also expected sport organizations to demonstrate stronger environmental responsibility than traditional businesses and expressed interest in working for environmentally conscious organizations. However, despite the rapid growth of sustainability initiatives in the sport industry, students’ environmental values, beliefs, and behaviors showed only minimal change compared to similar research conducted ten years earlier.

Sport management programs may be missing an important opportunity to prepare future industry leaders for sustainability challenges. The authors recommend integrating environmental sustainability more systematically into sport management curricula through standalone courses, modules across existing classes, guest speakers, and stronger collaboration between academia and the sport industry.

CITE: Pelcher, J., Trendafilova, S., & McCullough, B. (2024). Environmental behavior framework revisited: Where do we stand ten years later and where do we go from here? Sustainability, 16(17), 7380. DOI: 10.3390/su16177380