Fields Of Change: A Sustainability Handbook
08. Glossary and References
GLOSSARY:
Fossil Fuels:
Positive Feedback Loop:
Naturally-occuring fuels that are formed over millions of years from the remains of buried dead organisms, such as coal, oil, and gas.
A process where small changes in a system are amplified, because the effects work to reinforce or intensify the change. In the climate context, positive feedback loops are when the impacts of climate change make warming even faster, driving further climate change.
Greenhouse Gases:
Adaptation:
Carbon Neutral:
Gases that, when in the atmosphere, act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures. The main greenhouse gases causing climate change are carbon dioxide and methane.
Actions which strengthen resilience to impacts - in the sustainability context, this means recognising that the near-term impacts of climate change are already happening and will continue to happen, and so any new infrastructure or activities need to be designed with hazards such as higher temperatures and more extreme weather events in mind.
An organisation or activity is ‘carbon neutral’ if it contributes no net increase in CO 2 emissions. In practice, this means removing or offsetting an amount of CO2 which is equal to or greater than the amount of CO 2 released.
Resilience
The ability of a system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning; it is the capacity to adapt to stress and change.
Microplastics:
Carbon Sink:
Fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm in length. Larger pieces of plastic waste break down into microplastics over long periods of time. This is a problem as very small microplastics can contaminate the food chain as they are ingested by small organisms which are eaten by larger ones, and eventually humans. Microplastics have been found across the globe, in remote locations such as Antarctica, and have even been found in human breast milk.
Sport For Good Organisations:
Something which absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases, such as a forest.
Biodiversity:
Community organisations using sport as a transformative tool to accelerate humanity’s progress towards social, environmental and financial sustainability.
The variety of living things on Earth. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) describes it as “the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi”. These three levels work together to create life on Earth, in all its complexity.
Climate Change
Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Sportswashing:
When an organisation uses sports to improve its reputation - ‘cleaning’ its image by taking advantage of positive emotional connections to sporting events and teams.
Biodiversity Loss/Ecological Crisis:
Mitigation:
The loss of species or ecosystems, or their degradation. Human activity is driving unprecedented levels of biodiversity loss, leading to some terming the situation an ‘ecological crisis’.
Actions which reduce impacts - in the sustainability context, this means reducing the harm done to the environment by an activity or organisation, such as measures to reduce CO 2 emissions.
Tipping Points:
Communities
The idea of a critical threshold, past which a system changes rapidly and potentially irreversibly.
( In the context of Sport For Good organisations ): Targeted audience defined by the organisations to receive its core programmatic activities, that could take different forms in terms of size, gender, age, localization or social category.
Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 )
Net Zero:
A greenhouse gas that is released as a byproduct of burning many fossil fuels. When referring to greenhouse gas emissions in the context of climate change, it is often referred to as simply ‘carbon’. Totals of emissions of greenhouse gases are often converted into a value of the equivalent in CO 2 - notated as tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).
Similar to ‘carbon neutral’ in that it means there is no net addition to the level of carbon in the atmosphere, however it tends to represent a stronger commitment as the focus is on reducing emissions to the lowest possible level and balancing out remaining unavoidable emissions with carbon removal. Many governments have made Net Zero targets into law.
Embodied Carbon:
For infrastructure and buildings, the CO 2 emitted from the construction materials, building process, fixtures and fittings, and eventual deconstruction and disposal.
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