Sustainability and sport, turning challenges into opportunities

Sports organisations began to think about and engage with the challenges of sustainability much earlier than the adoption of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/Res/701), which identified sport as an important actor in the realisation of development and peace (pt. 37). Since 1994, there was a call for the inclusion of a provision in the Olympic Charter emphasising the Olympic Movement's concerns to preserve the environment. This led to the inclusion of a clause on the environment and sustainable development in the 1996 Olympic Charter, confirmed (with variations) in subsequent Olympic Charters. International sports organisations renewed their commitment to foster and promote environmental sustainability by adhering to the UN Sport for Climate Change Framework, aimed at bringing together sports federations, organisations, teams, athletes and fans in a concerted effort to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. In this regard, the Olympic Agenda 2020 is emblematic: here sustainability is considered as one of the three pillars alongside credibility and youth of IOC’s strategic roadmap. The results of the Agenda 2020 led the IOC to draft a new Agenda (named Agenda 2020+5) as a new roadmap determining the IOC and Olympic Movement until 2025, keeping in mind that sport and the value of Olympism can play a key role in turning challenges into opportunities.