Willingness-to-Pay for Environmental Measures in Non-Profit Sport Clubs

Abstract

To reduce global warming and climate change, the German government plans to implement a carbon tax, which will also affect sport organizations. This study investigates how much sport club members are willing to pay for environmental measures and how sport-specific, club-specific, environmental, and socio-demographic factors are associated with their willingness-to-pay. In 2019 and 2020, active adult sport club members in five team/racket sports were sampled using an online survey in Germany (n = 3036). The contingent valuation method was applied to estimate sport club members’ willingness-to-pay for environmental measures. Regression analyses were employed to investigate a set of factors that are associated with club members’ decision to pay at all and the amount of willingness-to-pay. The results show that 64.3% of respondents reported a positive willingness-to-pay. The average willingness-to-pay for environmental measures amounts to EUR 14.53 per year and to EUR 22.59 for those reporting a positive willingness-to-pay. The results of t-tests show that club members stating a positive WTP differ significantly from members who are not willing to pay anything in terms of sport-specific, club-specific, environmental, and socio-demographic factors. The logistic regression results indicate that the likelihood of reporting a positive willingness-to-pay increases with increasing environmental consciousness, educational level, weekly practice hours, identification and satisfaction with the club, and subjective well-being, while age has a U-shaped effect. The results of a Tobit model show that the amount of willingness-to-pay is positively determined by environmental consciousness, educational level, and satisfaction with the club. The findings suggest that the majority of club members are willing to pay higher membership fees for the implementation of environmental measures in sport clubs. Increasing members’ level of environmental consciousness through educational initiatives represents a way for sport policy and sport managers to help increase financial support for environmental measures among club members.

Civil society organisations as agents for societal change: Football clubs' engagement with sustainability

“…This research provides insights into the contributions of a particular CSOs type (football clubs) to sustainability, through training, events, competitions and collegiality (see Branscombe & Wann, 1991; Thormann & Wicker, 2021), and most important through their fan identity (as discussed by Branscombe & Wann, 1991; Jacobson, 2003; Lee & Robbins, 1995). This research confirms the findings on sports club's environmental efforts (see Collins & Flynn, 2008; Mallen & Chard, 2012) and complements them with a more holistic perspective on the four sustainability dimensions and their interconnections, as well as the sustainability adoption stages.…”

“…Sports organisations (or clubs) are a particular type of CSO aimed at providing societal welfare and entertainment through training, events, competitions and collegiality (Branscombe & Wann, 1991; Thormann & Wicker, 2021). In sports clubs, a fan identity to the club provides a sense of community and identification to the individual (Jacobson, 2003).…”

“…There has been increasing efforts to address the negative environmental and social impacts of sports organisations (Collins et al, 2009;Mallen & Chard, 2012;Trendafilova et al, 2014) and improve their positive ones (Daddi et al, 2021;McCullough et al, 2021;Trendafilova et al, 2013Trendafilova et al, , 2014, for example the German government plans to implement a carbon tax (Thormann & Wicker, 2021), and the engagement of sports organisations in building stronger relations with their stakeholders (Trendafilova et al, 2014).…”

Critical Interpretation of Spatiality in Professional Korean Football Stadiums: Relph’s Theory of Placeness

“…Soccer teams created without prior formal planning produced two problems. First, they were not profitable (Thormann and Wicker, 2021). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, FC Seoul had the highest income in 2019, with approximately 3.8 billion won, followed by Daegu FC, Suwon Samsung, and Jeonbuk Hyundai with 2.2, 2.1, and 1.9 billion won, respectively (Kim, 2020).…”

Eco-Initiatives in Municipal Cultural Institutions as Examples of Activities for Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Poznan

“…Among the six key points needed to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in a feasible manner, as outlined in the report "Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals" produced by the world in the 2050 initiative and presented at the United Nations High Level Political Forum in New York, are increased education for better environmental choices, responsible consumption and production, water conservation, and energy saving [24]. The emphasis on these issues in the field of broadly understood culture should come as no surprise, as sustainable development in the context of ecology or environmental protection also appears in other areas of life, such as tourism [25,26] or sport [27][28][29], which can be linked to lifestyle [30], or activities reflecting the socio-cultural context [31]. At the same time, it should be remembered that the activities undertaken by cultural institutions affect not only the direct recipients of their offer, as they also cause an increase in the ecological sensitivity of the individual in a much wider audience (e.g., family, friends, and acquaintances of the recipients of the cultural offer).…”