Fully equipped half bridge building block for fast prototyping of switching power converters

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Reduction of the voltage distortion with a converter employed as shunt harmonic impedance

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Environmental Sustainability in Belgian Sport Federations

Aim and research interest The awareness for environmental sustainability (ES) in sport is gradually increasing, resulting in more literature being published in the field (McCullough et al., 2020). However, to date, numerous important research domains remain unexplored. The environmental management of sport federations (SFs), for example, is little discussed. Yet, SFs are considered to be impactful actors that interact with a wide range of stakeholders and are, accordingly, potentially meaningful enforcers of ES (Sotiriadou & Hill, 2015; Zeimers et al., 2020). Furthermore, McCullough and colleagues (2020) noticed that, despite the considerable pressure to combat climate change, the environment is still too often taken for granted in managerial sport contexts. As a result, strategic environmental initiatives that are embedded in national SFs are still the exception rather than the norm. A profound strategic approach will, therefore, be an imperative next step to leverage the full potential and unique position of SFs. To assist the SFs, the aim of this paper is to map ES efforts in SFs and to analyse to what level these efforts are embedded into their organisational strategy. Theoretical background and literature review Currently, the literature on ES in SFs focused on international sport governing bodies like the International Olympic Committee (Paquette et al., 2011) or discussed ES from a general corporate social responsibility perspective (Zeimers et al., 2020). There is, also, literature available that examined the strategic management of ES in sport (Dingle & Mallen, 2021), but literature that addresses ES from a strategic perspective in national SF is scarce. McCullough, Pfahl and Nguyen (2016) created the environmental wave typology, which enables researchers to classify the initiation and development of ES in sport organisations. The authors built on the institutional theory and diffusion of innovation theory to understand the increased efforts of the sector and comprehend the drivers of change. Sport personnel awareness, knowledge and action levels are, for example, described as important factors (McCullough et al., 2016). This conceptual model provides a relevant framework to analyse the initial development of ES in sport organisations and it can serve as a foundation to indicate next steps for short- and long-term strategic planning. Research design, methodology and data analysis The study draws on qualitative and quantitative data about ES of Belgian national and regional SFs gathered through a survey, website analyses and official strategic documents. The data was collected from January 2020 until June 2020. In Belgium, 75 Flemish, 62 French and 16 German sport governing bodies are recognised and/or subsidised by the Belgian government. Additionally, four national governing bodies were selected and added to the database, since they did not have a functional regional federation. Three regional federations were excluded from the data collection, since they did not have a website that could be consulted to collect the data. This resulted in 154 Belgian SFs that were investigated through a website analyses and an official strategic documents assessment. An online survey resulted in 26 completed questionnaires, which is a response rate of 16.6%. Both data collections proved to be representative for the entire population, when looking at the region (i.e., Flemish, French and German) and the size of the federations (χ2 = 11.93; ns). The data will be processed and analysed in June and July 2021, whereby all the content regarding the three data collections will be classified and comprehensively reported. Results/findings and discussion The results of this study are not available yet, but they will give a clear overview of the current state of affairs regarding ES in SF. Furthermore, the findings will be discussed in relation to the current literature and analysed to what extend they are generalisable to an international context. Conclusion, contribution and implication The results from this study will provide stakeholders with insights regarding ES in SFs and, throughout time, it can ameliorate the environmental management in the sector. More precisely, the research might encourage federations that are not yet engaged with sustainability, to be more willingly to include the matter in their work and actions, and it can act as a source of information that might foster more diverse initiatives. Furthermore, the environmental wave typology suggested by McCullough et al. (2016) will identify the strategic efforts that are necessary to progress towards the next wave and might, therefore, provide the necessary knowledge for SF to initiate a more strategic approach in the long run