The GSS Champions of Sustainability Assessment Programme (CSA) provides a high-level evaluation of an organisation’s sustainability initiatives based on the GSS 7 Sustainable Pillars of Sport.

The assessment programme analyses an organisation’s sustainability initiatives across a range of indicators for each pillar, assessing what stage an organisation has reached, and comparing it with other sports organisations.

This assessment helps identify areas for improvement and sets the foundation for further development through the GSS Champions programme.

The CSA standard assessment programme is a high-level external assessment of an organisation’s sustainability activities. The assessment asks a series of Yes/No questions to ascertain the areas of sustainability that an organisation is active in. The assessment programme varies in scale from starter, developing, developed, advanced and champion for organisations at different stages of their sustainability journey.

An organisation may not feel it is active in all of the 7 sustainable pillars but can still complete those that it is. Some venues, for instance, may not have participation programmes and would not include any response for that section. That is taken into account in the assessment process.

The CSA standard assessment programme provides a good guideline as to the areas of sustainability that a sports organisation should be focused on. It also provides a general comparative to other sports organisations and where an organisation rates across each pillar.

The GSS Champions of Sustainability Assessment Plus programme is an in-depth internal and external assessment of an organisation’s sustainability programme across the 7 Sustainable Pillars of Sport every year. It enables an organisation to assess how it is progressing on an annual basis and provides a comparative with other organisations and industry standards.

The CSA+ assessment programme is more in-depth than the CSA standard assessment and looks at the areas that an organisation has confirmed it is involved in and looks at the level of that activity and provides an assessment of each activity. The assessment also looks at areas that it has said that it is not involved in and makes recommendations on those. It also looks at a broader set of indicators (500+) than the standard assessment.

GSS also offers a bespoke assessment programme for larger organisations and events and also for groups of organisations like clubs in a league, or member federations. These bespoke studies can provide group assessments and comparisons and also long-term assessments of major events.

Global Sustainable Sport undertook a survey in late 2023/early 2024 to understand how sustainable different sports stakeholders were in the sports industry and what were their challenges around assessing and measuring their sustainbility.

Over 80 organisations particiapted in the survey from 27 nations representing 16 sports. 57% of the respondents were from Europe, 24% from Africa, 10% from Asia and North America and 5% from Oceania.

The Preliminary Assessment provides a comprehensive guide as to the areas of sustainability that a sports organisation should be focused on. It also provides a general comparative to other sports organisations and where an organisation rates across each pillar.

 

Only 25% of organisations that participated in the GSS Survey stated that they were active in all 7 GSS Sustainable Pillars of Sport. A handful of organisations stated that they were active in only one pillar. These organisations are very much at the ‘Starter’ stage of sustainability.

The definition of sustainability used by GSS is very broad and covers many areas of an organisation. It is frequently the case that no one person has an overall view of the sustainability activities of an organisation.

The aim of the CSA-Starter assessment process is to very much to look at all areas of an organisation ensuring that sustainability sits at the core of the organisation and that all aspects of sustainability are considered during the decision-making process.

A number of organisations that participated in the GSS Survey were quite developed or advanced in one area of sustainability but were either in-active in other areas or at starter stage. This resulted in a number of organisation being rated at the Developing stage rather than more developed.

Over 80% of organisations were at the Developing stage, or below, indicating how far many sports organisations have to go before they can be considered a sustainable sports organisation.

Many organisations surveyed had never considered sustainability in such a broad context and had very much focused on one aspect of sustainability, particularly environmental. One of the core assets of a sports organisation is it social value through community and participation programmes which are frequently either under-valued or not valued at all.

Just over 15% of organisations that participated in the GSS Survey made it to the Developed stage and beyond. A number of these were quite advanced in a certain pillar, or pillars, but were not Developed across all areas.

The CSA-Developed assessment is a high-level external assessment based on a series of Yes/No answers and is very much a guide to sustainability and not a definitive assessment. To fully understand the level of assessment at the developed stage an organisation needs to move beyond the CSA standard assessment stage to the CSA+ assessment stage.

The CSA-Developed assessment looks at a broader set of indicators and validates the stage achieved across each indicator and provides a more accurate assessment of the sustainability stage reached by an organisation.

Less than 5% of organisations surveyed made it to the Advanced stage and no organisations made it to the Champions stage. Some organisations in the survey made Champion in certain pillars but not in all pillars.

To reach an Advanced or Champion status an organisation needs to conduct a CSA+ assessment across a broader set of indicators.

The CSA+ assessment looks at a more detailed set of indicators beyond the base set of indicators, from an internal and external position, and assesses the stage achieved by that organisation in each indicator. It is a much more comprehensive and advanced assessment which provides a more accurate and detailed assessment of an organisations sustainability.