Exploring balanced approaches in sport: navigating environmental and commercial logic

Abstract

The environmental movement in sport is taking shape in complex ways with various competing perspectives to ensure that sport and the natural environment are sustainable. As actors within the movement seek to get more organisations engaged, it is becoming clear that competing logics seek to advance the movement despite their conflict with the decision-makers’ logic in sport organisations. The purpose of this commentary is to discuss the merits of proposed environmental initiatives within the sport sector and to identify a balanced approach that harmonises environmental and commercial logic. Thus, we identify these competing logics and prescribe an equilibrium between the radical logics of environmentalism and commercialisation. This equilibrium requires these competing logics to be challenged and negotiated to advance the environmental sport movement. To this end, we propose an ecocentric perspective to seek a balance between sustaining sport and the natural environment, where both are seen as an end in and of themselves.