The keynote speech on day one will be specifically focused on sustainability in women’s handball, with Dr Jacqueline Müller presenting “Spotlight on social sustainability in women’s handball in Europe.”
Müller is a lecturer in Sports Business and Leadership at the Institute for Sport Business at Loughborough University London, and a module leader in Leadership, Diversity and Change in the Sports Industry. In this article, we offer a preview of Müller’s keynote lecture through examination of the topic of social sustainability in women’s handball in Europe.
To begin, it is important to understand the core concept of social sustainability. Social sustainability is tied closely with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, which includes all countries represented by EHF member federations.
This means that all EHF member federations, via their national governments, have a responsibility towards the Agenda and specifically the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As stated on the United Nations website, the SDGs “are an urgent call for action by all countries — developed and developing — in a global partnership. They recognise that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth — all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.”
Economic, social and environmental are the three dimensions balanced and integrated throughout the 17 SDGs. The most relevant of those dimensions to handball is social sustainability, and that is where Müller comes in.
“Simply speaking, social responsibility is the ethical dimensions of the sustainability framework. It encompasses aspects that relate to the inclusion and exclusion of people, human rights, as well as working conditions,” says Müller when broadly defining social sustainability.
Gender equality and empowerment of women and girls are core areas identified in the 2030 Agenda, making social sustainability highly relevant to the Women’s Handball Conference. But how does social sustainability relate to sport specifically?
“The sports industry is currently regarded as the ninth largest industry worldwide. It has an enormous symbolic as well as cultural and financial power. Or to use the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘Sport has the power to change the world.’ That is, in order to use the power of sport to change the world into a more equitable, inclusive, and safe space, a greater focus should be placed on social sustainability,” says Müller.
“More specifically, the role of social sustainability in sport becomes very apparent when we look at the hosting of mega sporting events and potential human rights violations that could home with it (e.g., Qatar World Cup). But we do not need to even look this far as we only need to look at differences in allocated resources, media coverage, the perceived value of the women’s handball game, as well as representation of women in leadership positions across European handball federations.