Environmental sustainability of sporting events in local communities: Assessing the ecological footprint of the 2013 International Childrenu27s Games

摘要

Sport management literature regarding the environmental sustainability (ES) of sport events has been predominately focused on the environmental consequences of staging major events. As a result, there is little research concerned with the environmental impacts of small-scale events on host communities. The primary objective of this study was to calculate the Ecological Footprint (EF) of the 2013 International Childrenu27s Games (ICG). Developed in the early 1990s by Wackernagel and Rees, the EF is an analysis tool that measures the resource consumption of a human population within a geographical boundary. The EF of the 2013 ICG was estimated through the creation of an EF calculator capable of measuring the environmental impact of a sporting event in Ontario, as well as data provided by various members of the Windsor-Essex ICG Organization Committee. The results from this study exhibited how the EF concept can support event organizers in staging environmentally sustainable events.