ABSTRACT
The aims of this book are to outline the current research on sport and environmental sustainability (sport-ES), and to encourage future research to assist sport to fully enact sport-ES. This chapter outlines sport’s dependence on the natural environment as a place for sport, as well as how sport can adversely impact our natural world. The authors argue that it is the responsibility of all members within sport to act to adopt practices that maintain the natural resources for sport. Research on sport-ES is the focus of each subsequent chapter, and over 225 publications are reviewed. This chapter introduces the chapters that follow in three stages: first, discussion of how the pivotal concepts of “sport”, the “environment”, and “environmental sustainability” are defined; second, an outline of the parameters that guided selection of the research that was reviewed in each chapter whereby each manuscript (1) focused on competitive sport; and (2) was published in peer-reviewed academic journals. Third, the basic structure of each chapter is introduced whereby a synopsis of each research manuscript is presented outlining the research method, setting, area/sector of sport, theoretical foundations, themes, and conclusions. Research gaps for each topic area are then highlighted.
