Veranstaltungsprogramm

In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and agreed that it is vital for current and future generations to pursue 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Science, education, and sport are seen as drivers and important enablers of sustainable development (SD). Yet, even though all professions are called upon to embed SD into their work to facilitate change, and even though sport and exercise psychology professionals could play an important role in this process, there seems to be only little awareness of the need to contribute to SD as a discipline. The goal of this symposium is to highlight the importance of the topic “sustainable development” for the field of sport psychology and to provide room for reflection and discussion. After a general introduction to the topic, it will be illustrated why and how sport and exercise psychology professionals can and should contribute to the promotion of sustainable development (first presentation). In the second presentation, it will be summarized how the field of sport and exercise psychology is and will be impacted by climate change, and how it can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. The third presentation will focus on the role of sport psychology practitioners, and it will demonstrate specific examples of the work as practitioner with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals.

This presentation argues that Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals should use the principles of “Sustainable development” (SD) to guide their professional work and decision-making. SD can be seen as a continuous negotiation process identifying compromises to achieve intra- and intergenerational justice, and a balance between the three intertwined sustainability dimensions: the socio-cultural, the environmental, and the economic interests. These three so-called pillars of sustainability relate to nearly every decision an individual makes, thus also to the decisions we make in our daily work as Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals. This presentation will provide several reasons why Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals should care about SD: most ethical guidelines already (indirectly) call for sustainable action; SD and Sport and Exercise Psychology share the same goal of improved health and well-being; and Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals have unique opportunities to promote SD as experts in the field of behaviour change. Several ways how Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals can have a significant impact on SD will be discussed. We will furthermore address the concern that the call for action formulated in this presentation is not "neutral" but includes a normative compass of what is “good ” and “bad.” All in all, the presentation aims to inspire Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals to contribute to promoting planetary health and internationally agreed societal goals.

This (online) presentation will highlight that sport related activities and climate change are associated in a bidirectional way. Climate change consequences (e.g., air pollution, heat waves, warming temperatures) are becoming a barrier to sport and physical activities. However, amateur and professional sport practices are associated with elevated carbon footprints compared to average values in the general population. Thus, the community of sport and exercise psychology should quickly act to cope with dramatic climate change issues. The principal risk for our community is to act too little and too late. Our call to action presents the specific climate change issues for sport psychology communities. Moreover, we suggest a set of research questions and concrete examples to cope with climate change consequences.

This contribution focuses on the how and what of sustainability in the work as Sport and Exercise Psychology professionals. We examine the practical work of Sport and Exercise Psychology practitioners from three different perspectives: First, we look at the practitioners themselves and we start with a short reflection on values at work. Here, we also discuss how our values influence the work we do and the role we have in the field of sports. Second, we look at the clients, with a particular focus on the unique characteristics of Generation Z, and the sport organizations that Sport and Exercise Psychology practitioners support in this time of change. Last, specific examples and methods of the work on the Sustainable Development Goals with regard to the field of Sport and Exercise Psychology are demonstrated.