Knowledge transfer

Symposium "Sustainability communication in sports associations"

Being able to communicate about sustainability issues in a competent and nuanced manner is a skill that is becoming increasingly important for both athletes and employees in sports associations. As part of the Master’s module "Sports marketing & responsibility", the aim was to develop a training tool for sustainability communication in collaboration with six associations: Swiss Athletics, Swiss Cycling, Swiss Ski, Swiss Surfing, Swiss Tennis and the Swiss Alpine Club. To this end, the specific starting points and needs were analysed and success factors for the implementation of a tailor-made training tool were determined. Raworth’s doughnut model (2012) was used as the theoretical framework, which takes into account and can map planetary and social system boundaries in decision-making. As a special innovation, this model was adapted during the course so that it can be used as an analysis tool in the context of sports associations.

The results from the individual projects were presented by the students in January 2025 at a symposium with the cooperating associations and other stakeholders (Swiss Olympic, SFV, BERTAKOMM) and discussed in workshops. This resulted in an initial concept for the implementation of the training tool, which was subsequently refined and translated into four specific learning modules. These are currently being implemented in collaboration with the Orbit learning platform (www.orbit.schule) and will be made available to the associations by the end of 2025.

Christian Moesch & Pascal Stegmann