SPORT FACILITIES AS DRIVERS OF ENVIRONMENTAL LEGACY AND SUSTAINABILITY
| PIERLUDOVICO ARNESE * |
UDC 330.12:796 502.12:796 |
|---|---|
| DOIhttps://doi.org/10.30925/slpdj.3.1.3 | |
| Received on July 7, 2025 | |
| Accepted on August 5, 2025 | |
| Preliminary communication |
1. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
The intersection between sports infrastructure and environmental sustainability has emerged as a critical area of inquiry in recent years. As climate change accelerates and global sporting events grow in scale and frequency, sports facilities are increasingly scrutinized not only for their functionality but also for their ecological footprint. These structures, which range from local gyms to Olympic stadiums, consume vast amounts of energy and materials, often leaving behind underutilized “white elephants” and posing serious challenges in terms of environmental legacy.1 At the same time, however, they hold untapped potential as catalysts for green innovation, urban regeneration, and community engagement.
The European Union plays an active part in defining the objectives of the 2030 Agenda2 and the Paris Agreement.3Through the 2019 Green Deal,4it assigns primary importance to environmental protection, placing sustainability a key pillar of its initiative for 2019-2024 and 2021-2027. These initiatives focus on climate change, energy production from renewable sources, and the transition to a zero-emission economy.
A crucial role within these objectives shall be recognised by the EPBD5. The revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EU/2024/1275) entered into force in all EU countries on 28 May 2024 and helps increase the rate of renovation in the EU, particularly for the worst-performing buildings in each country. Nevertheless, EPBD includes sports facilities as part of the buildings covered by its regulations, aiming to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This paper begins by framing the concept of environmental legacy within the broader discourse on sustainable development and sport policy. It argues that sport facilities should not be viewed merely as temporary venues for performance but rather as long-term public assets capable of contributing to climate goals and social cohesion.
This research will analyse these issues. Beginning with the bad practice example set by Italy, it will focus on the long-term infrastructure impact, community engagement and resource management. These three themes will form the core of the research, examined at the EU level, but also internationally. From this perspective, a particular attention will be given to the Kazan Action Plan6 and its aim to link sport policy development to the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations.
Throughout the research, the conclusion will assess whether the final result of a real environmental legacy can be achieved through better regulation and harmonisation or by extending existing rules on sport facilities. The aim is to explore and better define the importance of regulating the so-called post event use, as a decisive factor in ensuring that the legacy of sport infrastructure is not only symbolic, but concrete and lasting.
2. THE EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE: THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL AND THE EPBD DIRECTIVE (EU/2024/1275)
The European Green Deal represents the cornerstone of the EU’s strategy to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Although sport is not explicitly addressed within its core pillars, the principles of environmental transition, energy efficiency, and social inclusion directly impact how sport infrastructure is planned and managed. The 2024 revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive plays a central role in this context. While primarily focused on residential and commercial buildings, the directive sets a regulatory framework that can and should be extended to public sport facilities. These facilities which often represent some of the most energy-consuming and underperforming assets in municipal inventories.
In essence, the European Green Deal is the European Union’s overarching strategy to achieve, climate neutrality by 2050, promoting a just and inclusive transition across all sectors of the economy.
While the sport sector is not explicitly mentioned among its main pillars, its objectives– energy efficiency, carbon neutrality, circular economy, and sustainable urban development–are directly relevant to the planning, construction, and renovation of sport facilities, which often represent energy-intensive and environmentally impactful public assets.7
Within this broader context, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), recently revised as EU/2024/1275, plays a central regulatory role. The directive mandates that all new buildings must be zero-emission buildings (ZEB) by 2030, and it strengthens requirements for deep renovation of the existing building stock, especially those with the lowest energy performance.8 Key instruments introduced or reinforced by the directive include Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), national building renovation plans, and minimum energy performance standards (MEPS). While sport facilities are not always the primary focus of these policies, they fall under the scope of public buildings and are thus directly affected by national implementation strategies.
Despite their importance, sport facilities have often been overlooked in national and local energy transition plans. They are frequently excluded from targeted funding schemes, lack tailored energy benchmarks, and are rarely integrated into urban sustainability frameworks. Yet, they represent significant potential: due to their size, usage patterns, and visibility, they can serve as flagships of sustainable transformation, combining technological innovation (e.g., solar panels, green roofs, water reuse systems) with public engagement.9
The challenge lies in bridging the policy gap between the ambitions of the Green Deal and the specific needs of the sport sector. In this regard, municipalities, sports federations, and national governments are called to act more decisively, using the EPBD as a legal lever to promote the renovation and energy transition of sport infrastructure. This alignment is crucial not only to reduce emissions and operational costs, but also to ensure that public investments in sport serve a broader environmental and social legacy.10
The author highly recommends referencing the EPBD. In fact, even if the EPBD Directive (EU/2024/1275) does not explicitly mention sports facilities, these buildings are clearly encompassed in the broader categories of non-residential and, in many cases, public buildings addressed throughout the text. As such, sport infrastructure is indirectly but significantly impacted by several key provisions of the directive.
Firstly, Article 711 mandates that all new buildings, including non-residential ones, must meet zero-emission building (ZEB) standards by 2030. This requirement applies to newly constructed sport facilities, whether publicly or privately owned, ensuring they align with the EU’s climate neutrality objectives.
Additionally, Articles 5 and 812 address major renovations and stipulate that buildings undergoing significant upgrades must comply with updated energy performance requirements. Given that many public sport facilities across Europe are aging and energy-intensive, these provisions will be crucial in guiding their future retrofitting efforts.
One of the most impactful measures is set out in Article 913, which introduces Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for non-residential buildings. Member States are required to identify and progressively renovate the worst-performing segment of their building stock – specifically, the lowest 16% by 2030, increasing to 26% by 2033. Many older sport venues, particularly those built in the mid-20th century and never renovated, are likely to fall within this threshold, making them a target for mandatory energy upgrades.
The directive also supports this transition with enabling tools. Article 12 introduces Building Renovation Passports,14 designed to provide tailored roadmaps for stepwise renovation, while Article 18 encourages the development of “one-stop-shops”15 offering technical and administrative support for building owners. Sport facility managers, often lacking specialized energy expertise, can greatly benefit from such mechanisms.
Another relevant provision is found in Article 17, paragraph 15,16 which prohibits financial incentives for installing stand-alone fossil fuel boilers as of 1 January 2025, unless explicitly approved under specific exemptions. This rule will directly influence the heating systems of many older sport facilities, steering them towards renewable or hybrid solutions.
Taken together, these provisions demonstrate that, despite the absence of any explicit reference, sport facilities are implicitly embedded in the regulatory framework of the EPBD. Their classification as non-residential and often public buildings places them squarely within the directive’s scope. However, this implicit inclusion risks being overlooked at the national level, especially in contexts where sport infrastructure is not considered a strategic priority for environmental reform.
It is therefore essential that national renovation plans and local authorities recognize and act upon this regulatory applicability, treating sport venues not as exceptions but as opportunities to showcase the energy transition in action: highly visible, socially relevant, and symbolically powerful.17
3. THE INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: SPORT AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE GLOBAL AGENDA AND THE KAZAN ACTION PLAN
Building on the European regulatory framework, it becomes evident that the sustainable transformation of sport facilities is not solely a regional concern but also resonates strongly at the global policy level.
In fact, the role of sport in promoting sustainability is increasingly recognized within the international community, not merely as an instrument of education and inclusion, but also as a sector with tangible environmental responsibilities, particularly in terms of its infrastructure.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, identifies sport as “an important enabler of sustainable development.”18
While no individual Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is dedicated solely to sport, its intersections with SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption), and SDG 13 (Climate Action) are directly relevant to the lifecycle of sport infrastructure. These goals highlight the need to rethink how physical spaces, such as sport venues and facilities, are conceived, constructed, operated, and integrated into broader ecological and urban systems.
A more focused effort can be seen in the Kazan Action Plan, endorsed by UNESCO in 2017. This policy document offers a roadmap for aligning sport with the SDGs,19 emphasizing the importance of sustainable, accessible, and inclusive sport facilities as a foundation for equitable and environmentally sound sport systems. It explicitly calls for the integration of sport into urban development strategies, encouraging evidence-based investments that reduce ecological impact while maximizing social benefits.
Introducing a more operational and climate-specific dimension, the Sport for Climate Action Framework, launched by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)20 in 2018, urges sport organizations and stakeholders to commit to a set of principles aimed at reducing the sector’s environmental footprint. These principles include making systematic efforts to promote climate responsibility, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and advocate for broader climate awareness. While initially tailored to professional sport bodies and event organizers, the framework’s ethos is equally applicable to the design and operation of local and municipal sport facilities, which, although often modest in scale, represent a substantial share of the sector’s built environment and energy use.
Crucially, sport facilities are not neutral spaces. As energy-intensive public buildings,21 they bear a disproportionate weight in municipal carbon footprints, particularly older structures built without sustainability standards. Yet they also hold unique potential as flagships of green transition. Unlike schools or administrative offices, sport venues are highly visible and symbolically charged, capable of engaging citizens and catalyzing public awareness around environmental issues.
Despite this, the implementation gap between international aspirations and local policy remains substantial. Declarations like the Kazan Plan and the Sport for Climate Action Framework are non-binding and often lack the follow-up mechanisms necessary to drive concrete infrastructure reform. Without national alignment, sport facilities risk being excluded from climate financing schemes and green recovery strategies, especially in contexts where sport is treated as a cultural or recreational luxury rather than a strategic lever of sustainability.
Therefore, aligning international frameworks with European legal instruments, such as the already analysed EPBD, offers a valuable opportunity. By anchoring sport infrastructure policy in both binding regulation and global normative consensus, public authorities can ensure that the transition toward sustainability is not only technically achievable but also politically and socially legitimate. Sport venues, when designed or renovated with this dual perspective, become more than compliant buildings: they become living symbols of a climate-conscious and, moreover, community-oriented future.
4. THE ITALIAN CASE: FROM A “BAD PRACTICE EXAMPLE” TO A CREDIBLE FOUNDATION FOR HOPE
While European and international frameworks provide robust guidance for embedding sustainability into sports infrastructure, Italy serves as a cautionary tale of how policy fragmentation, underfunding, and a lack of strategic vision can undermine these ambitions. Despite its rich sporting tradition and strong architectural heritage, Italy has struggled to align its sports infrastructure policies with contemporary environmental and social standards.22
One of the most emblematic failures lies in the neglect and deterioration of public sport facilities, particularly those built between the 1960s and 1980s. Many of these structures are now outdated in terms of energy efficiency, structurally obsolete, and not in line with modern urban planning principles. Maintenance backlogs, unclear ownership responsibilities, and inconsistent funding mechanisms have left municipalities unable (or unwilling) to undertake necessary renovations. In numerous cities, sport venues continue to operate with outdated heating systems, poor insulation, and no integration of renewable energy sources, resulting in high operating costs and significant environmental impacts.23
A prime example of this systemic failure is the Stadio Flaminio in Rome. Initially designed in the late 1950s by Pier Luigi and Antonio Nervi as a bold, modernist experiment in concrete elegance, the Flaminio was once a cultural and sporting landmark. Yet, today it stands abandoned, closed since 2011, deteriorating, fenced off, and neglected.24 Its decline is not simply the result of structural obsolescence or financial constraints, but also a failure of governance and imagination.
What truly marks the Flaminio case as paradigmatic is the absence of a long-term legacy strategy and the disconnection from its urban and social context. The stadium was never effectively reintegrated into the evolving needs of the city or its communities. No participatory processes were launched to repurpose25 it for public use, no adaptive reuse vision was pursued, and no coordinated efforts emerged between state, city, sports federations, and heritage protection bodies. The inertia that followed its closure reflects a broader Italian difficulty in conceiving sport infrastructure as a living, evolving urban asset, rather than a one-off event platform.
Moreover, the Flaminio was a prime candidate to become a flagship of sustainable renovation, combining architectural preservation with green innovation and community engagement. Instead, its decay has become an indictment of missed opportunities and fragmented responsibilities. Its story illustrates how, in the absence of strong institutional coordination, cultural vision, and civic involvement, even iconic facilities are doomed to irrelevance.
This lack of community ownership and forward-looking legacy planning is a recurring weakness in the Italian model. Sport venues are very often treated as isolated objects, rather than integrated pieces of urban life capable of producing long-term social, environmental, and economic value.
Nonetheless, recent developments offer a degree of cautious optimism.26 The current Minister for Sport has acknowledged the strategic importance of regenerating Italy’s stadiums and public facilities. In the context of the 2026 Mediterranean Games in Taranto, his ministry has promoted the idea of legacy-oriented planning, with attention to sustainability, public utility, and urban revitalization. While these intentions still require structural backing and clear implementation paths, they represent a potential turning point: provided lessons from the Flaminio and similar failures are truly absorbed.
5. TOWARD INTERNATIONAL “GOOD PRACTICE” MODELS
In the comparative landscape of sustainable sport infrastructure, several international experiences demonstrate how clear regulatory vision, inter-institutional coordination, and long-term planning can transform sport facilities into levers for environmental innovation and civic engagement. These “good” models offer policy-relevant insights for jurisdictions still struggling to embed sustainability and legacy in the management of their sport assets.
A paradigmatic case is that of the United Kingdom, particularly, in the framework of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The legal architecture of the Games was exceptional in its inclusion of environmental legacy objectives, articulated through a set of binding and programmatic documents, such as the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 200627 and the Sustainable Development Strategy for the London 2012 Olympic Games.28
These documents were followed by the Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) documents and Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) issued by the Greater London Authority and local boroughs, which reinforced legacy obligations at the municipal level. Additionally, the ongoing role of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), a statutory body tasked with managing the long-term use, transformation, and community integration of Olympic venues, further solidified the commitment to mantaining the legacy of the games.
The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which now hosts a variety of public sport facilities, housing, and cultural spaces, stands as a testament to the capacity of legal instruments to embed life-cycle sustainability, post-use planning, and community-centered redevelopment.29
Crucially, the UK's regulatory ecosystem views sports infrastructure not as an isolated sector, but as a component of spatial and environmental planning, governed by the broader legal corpus such as the Town and Country Planning Act 1990,30 the Environmental Protection Act 1990,31 and subsequent updates like the Planning Act 200832 and Environment Act 2021.33
In Germany, a more decentralized but equally robust framework is in place. Municipalities are empowered by federal legislation34 to access climate funds for the renovation of public buildings, including sport facilities. The Kommunalrichtlinie acts as the primary financial and procedural channel, integrating minimum energy performance standards, life-cycle assessments, and green procurement rules. Notably, technical guidelines such as the DIN V 1859935 standard are applied to sport buildings to ensure consistency in energy evaluation and retrofitting.
The Nordic countries further enrich this comparative picture. In Norway, public sport facilities are subject to national climate adaptation plans and are increasingly built using bio-based materials and passive energy systems, in line with the TEK17 Building Code. In Finland, the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts36 and the National Sports Facilities Strategy37 provide a governance framework that connects environmental targets with public investment and land use policy.
These international examples demonstrate that it is not only possible, but also legally and institutionally feasible, to align sport infrastructure with long-term environmental and social goals. Yet, the Italian case highlights a significant structural gap: in the absence of a dedicated regulatory framework, sport facilities remain peripheral to national climate and urban agendas.
For this reason, a stronger and more explicit normative impulse from the European level becomes not just desirable, but necessary. While directives such as the EPBD (EU/2024/1275) already provide a foundational framework, their indirect applicability to sport infrastructure risks marginalization unless further clarified and supported by sector-specific implementation guidelines. A more binding and integrated European strategy, possibly within the framework of the Green Deal or a future Sport and Sustainability Action Plan, could serve as both a legal lever and political catalyst, encouraging national governments to incorporate sport infrastructure into climate renovation plans, funding mechanisms, and performance standards.
Only through this vertical alignment of legal norms (from EU to national and local levels) can the sector transition from exception to exemplar, unlocking its full potential as a driver of public sustainability, innovation, and legacy.
6. FINAL REFLECTIONS: COMMUNITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND LEGACY AS KEY DIMENSIONS
The preceding analysis has highlighted how sport facilities represent not only physical infrastructures but pivotal arenas where environmental, social, and legal dimensions intersect. To transform these spaces into true catalysts for sustainable development, three interconnected principles must be prioritized: community engagement, environmental sustainability, and the establishment of a lasting legacy.
Firstly, community involvement is essential.38 Sustainable sport infrastructure cannot be imposed top-down as mere technical or regulatory compliance. Instead, it requires active participation from local populations, sports organizations, and civil society to ensure that facilities respond to genuine needs and foster inclusive access. The failure of cases like Rome’s Flaminio Stadium underscores the consequences of neglecting community voices and disregarding post-event uses, resulting in derelict, underutilized assets.
Secondly, environmental sustainability must be embedded in every phase39 from design and construction to operation and eventual decommissioning or repurposing. This entails adherence to strict energy performance standards, integration of renewable technologies, circular material use, and climate resilience. Legal frameworks, both at the European and national levels, should incentivize and enforce these criteria, making sustainability a non-negotiable standard rather than an optional goal.
Finally, legacy must be conceived as a multidimensional concept that encompasses social inclusion, economic viability, and cultural continuity, going beyond mere environmental metrics.40 Legacy governance demands transparent planning, monitoring mechanisms, and long-term stewardship to ensure that investments in sport infrastructure generate enduring benefits for communities and the environment.
Only by weaving these three pillars into an integrated legal and policy approach can sport facilities become flagships of sustainable transformation: symbols of a society that values health, environmental stewardship, and overall well-being.
The European Union, through its Green Deal and related directives, is uniquely positioned to provide the normative backbone for this transformation. Yet, the success of these initiatives hinges on the ability and willingness of national and local actors to translate these principles into practice, fostering collaboration across sectors and embedding sport facilities into wider urban sustainability strategies.
In conclusion, moving forward requires a holistic vision and committed governance, where legal instruments serve not only as regulatory constraints but as enablers of innovation and community empowerment. This is the foundation upon which a credible environmental legacy can be built in order to elevate sport facilities from isolated structures into vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive public assets.
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