Abstract

We are living in times of tremendous ecological change (Winn & Kirchgeorg, 2005). In response, the United
Nations (UN) promotes a movement towards safeguarding the natural environment or environmental
sustainability (ES). Sport has not been immune from the challenges of ES and, thus, the guiding research
question of the current investigation was: How does sport communicate its participation in environmental
sustainability (ES)? To answer this research question this study focused on sport facilities that were home to a
professional Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise during 2011; specifically, the analysis focused on the
facilities’ website communications on ES. This investigation utilized a content analysis process for data
collection that involved four steps framed with an adaptation of the design by Krippendorff (1980) and Weber
(1985). Data analysis was framed with the principles of environmental performance by Glavi? and Lukman
(2007) as well as ES components by Mallen and Chard (2012). The results showed that sport facilities
communicated a pattern towards some ES action; specifically, renewable resource use, resource minimization,
and recycling were communicated as the key areas of focus for sustainability.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.