This article is a condensed version of a discussion paper prepared for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).**

The provision of physical education and the opportunity to participate in sport and physical activity on a regular basis are critical building blocks for the development of healthy individuals and, by extension, a healthy society. Over the past several decades, studies have consistently shown how quality physical education (QPE) can provide a range of health (physical, social, emotional, psychological) benefits to students when they receive it on a regular basis during their school years. Habits and practices developed at a young age frequently translate into lifelong benefits. The benefits to society as a whole, of encouraging and providing access to physical activity and sport opportunities, are economic as well as social, through avoided costs as well as stimulating new and complementary economic activity.

Despite this overwhelming evidence, the status of physical education is in decline in many countries worldwide. When forced to compete for resources, space and time, PE is often given lower priority than “core curriculum” subjects (literacy, numeracy, and science) and emerging subjects (e.g. computers). The slow erosion of physical education points to the need to “rethink, renovate and adapt the policies and programmes of physical education in order to bring them into line with the changing world.” (UNESCO, 1999).

At the same time as this rethinking and adaptation is going on, many political leaders and members of civil society worldwide are going through a similar re-evaluation and redesign, as they work their way towards a more “sustainable” approach to development, one that balances and integrates the pursuit of economic, environmental and social goals, and gives due regard to the future of the planet and its inhabitants.

The goal of sustainable development is to have a healthy planet, populated by healthy individuals, supporting healthy societies and economies. The goal of quality physical education, on the other hand, is to produce healthy individuals, capable of leading long, healthy and productive lives. The two goals are connected and complementary: healthy, active individuals play a key role in the creation and maintenance of a sustainable community, while sustainable development is an important contributor to the development of healthy individuals.

The overlap between the goals of promoting sustainable development and the goals of quality physical education and sport, point to an opportunity: QPE can become more relevant and of renewed and broader interest to more people, if it integrates a more holistic and far-reaching approach.

The relevance of sustainable development to QPE and sport can be characterized by the following four statements and propositions:

Table C: Some Unsustainable Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity

Individual health and well-being depends on more than a good diet and plenty of exercise. A whole range of “environmental” factors also come into play, including social and political ones. If the goal of Quality Physical Education is to provide individuals with the knowledge, tools and habits that they will need to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle, then QPE curriculum and activities must somehow address this wide range of issues. First, QPE will need to provide instruction in how to recognize factors that will negatively affect individual health. Second, QPE will need to provide some instruction in how to avoid these negative influences. Third, and perhaps most important, QPE will need to look at ways in which individuals can contribute to building a more sustainable society where these negative influences have been minimized or even eliminated.

The extent to which physical education and sport have been integrated with sustainable development remains relatively limited on a global basis. Finding both topics covered in any comprehensive way within the same curriculum in schools remains exceptional rather than common, even if there is a detectable trend in this direction. This being the case, it is natural to consider why it is so.

Too few professionals in the field of education, let alone experts in physical education and sport have sufficient knowledge of environment and social issues to be able to either recognize the extent and importance of the connections between sustainable development and physical activity, or the importance of working to integrate common issues and themes. Even where teachers and leaders in QPE recognize that more work could be done to integrate them, few have the knowledge to initiate this process and to develop appropriately integrated curriculum and activities. With sufficient resources, such integration might be more common and movement in this direction could certainly be accelerated.

Picking up from the previous point, resources for education are increasingly at a premium in almost every country, as many governments work to reign in past deficit spending or to maintain basic educational systems. With money being tight, new initiatives tend to be at the end of the line for allocation of resources. In fact, many school systems have yet to adequately fund basic PE programmes. Some only give lip service to providing quality physical education on a daily or even regular basis. Without QPE programmes that feature professional instruction, it is difficult to propose or impose new approaches, topics and course material, even when this may be an appropriate direction for the future.

Compounding the challenge of resource constraints in some countries, notably Canada and the United States is a “back to basics” agenda, which emphasizes a return to traditional basic subjects, but with a strong modern emphasis on marketable technology skills, such as computer proficiency. This agenda tends to be driven partly by resource constraints and partly by an ideological shift, in which many of the arts (music and drama) are given lower priority, along with physical education. Environmental education is similarly being whittled down, perversely it might seem, just after achieving a foothold in the curriculum during the 1990s.

Interestingly, the most practical and effective way to overcome these constraints may lie in the word “integration”. After all, it is not necessary to create entirely new courses and re-train or hire new teachers in order to ensure that relevant sustainable development concepts and issues are included as part of physical education. The most practical and cost-effective solution would lie in re-orienting QPE so that it introduces students to some important new issues, uses activities that integrate and reinforce relevant lessons, and works to promote the shared goal of sustainable active living. This should not be done at the expense of the integrity of existing QPE programs, however. A cross-curricular and team-teaching approach might best serve this need. Some practical suggestions as to how this might be done are made in the final section of this paper.

The argument in favour of better integrating QPE promotion and the pursuit of sustainable development, to the benefit of both goals, appears persuasive enough. What is missing at this point, however, is an appropriate new terminology, supported by a comprehensive framework, that is not only conceptual but can be put into practice.

In a recent paper entitled Physical Education and Sustainable Development: An Untrodden Path – one of a very small number of academic papers to directly tackle the connection between the two – authors Lake, Stratton, Martin and Money (2001) propose an appropriate term and argue for the adoption of the concept: “Sustainable active living.”

Sustainable active living (SAL) is an approach to quality physical education that would have an integrated goal of educating individuals to live healthy, active lives while equipping them to strive to exemplify sustainable living and to promote it in all spheres of their lives and their community.

While the authors do not elaborate much on their idea, they provide a useful new term and encourage further thinking and discussion of this concept.

The idea of sustainable active living will be explored in greater detail in the final section of this paper.

While we must be careful not to place too much on the backs of PE practitioners – who cannot be expected to provide a catch-all subject or magic solutions to social and political challenges – physical education is one area where certain relevant topics and approaches essential to sustainable development can be introduced and practised, ideally as part of a broader cross-curriculum approach.

The declining status of quality physical education points to a need for QPE to expand its focus, so as to incorporate discussion of a broader range of environmental and social issues. QPE can help to guarantee its ongoing relevance by examining and responding to some of the major contemporary challenges and issues of society. QPE programs, both inside of schools and elsewhere, must not just be about the individual, the body and personal health decisions. QPE must also be about the health of the society and the environment in which it is being taught.

Current environmental and social conditions worldwide point to the necessity for all sectors of society, in all regions, to adopt and promote sustainable practices with a renewed sense of urgency. Participants in physical education and sport worldwide, at whatever level, have a role to play, both in adopting a sustainable approach that we might call sustainable active living (SAL), and in integrating many applicable elements into a curriculum that promotes SAL.

Overall, we can conclude that the concerns of QPE, sport and sustainable development overlap in a number of ways, some obvious and some subtle. We can also conclude that they share a common goal: the promotion of sustainable active living.

Sustainable active living (SAL) is an approach that combines elements of quality physical education and the promotion of sustainability. SAL is an approach to living as well as to personal and social development that can be taught to youth in an institutional setting (schools, clubs, etc.). The applicability of SAL goes well beyond schools and sports clubs, however; it is equally an approach to lifelong activity, development and learning which emphasizes engaging in regular physical activity, and the adoption and promotion (at an individual and collective level) of environmental and social responsibility. SAL is living in a healthy, active and responsible way.

By teaching SAL to youth and encouraging its lifelong practice, QPE teachers and others with whom they engage in cross-curriculum or “team” teaching can contribute to the healthy and sustainable development of the responsible citizens and leaders of the future. In this way, schools and other institutions will be contributing to more sustainable social, environmental and economic development in greater society.

Quality physical education practitioners and all organizers and participants in sport and physical activity in their many forms have both an opportunity and a responsibility to adopt and promote the concept of SAL.

SAL can and must be introduced in a manner that supports the importance and integrity of QPE, however. The introduction of SAL in schools should help to reinforce the importance of quality, regular physical education and sport activity, rather than as a replacement or competing priority. QPE practitioners, in primary schools through to university, can work with teachers of other subjects to support SAL as a cross-curricular approach.

In this final section, we will propose a number of ways in which the principal actors in QPE and sustainable development might develop a framework, implementation strategies and some concrete steps for: consciously integrating sustainable development into QPE and sport; using QPE and sport to support the pursuit of sustainable development; and fleshing out and promoting the concept of sustainable active living.

This section proposes a Framework for integrating sustainable development into the theory and practice of quality physical education and sport through the adoption and promotion of the SAL approach.

Quality physical education (particularly at the college and university level) should promote an understanding of the following issues related to sport and recreation events, facilities and activities, and their implications for sustainable active living:

Using the above Framework, how might this new sustainable active living “agenda” be promoted and implemented across the wide array of institutions and organizations with a mandate for physical education and sport? Various institutions and groups responsible for physical education and sport, and/or environmental and sustainable development education and activities, might begin to integrate and promote a sustainable active living approach.

Implementing Body	Activity
Government ministry of education	Adopt and promote SAL as a primary focus of QPE approach and objectives Develop curriculum integrating SAL into PE and other appropriate subject areas and school activities
Teacher training college	Teach SAL approach and activities Provide PE and environmental education teachers with instructional material, including activity kits
School	Re-emphasize the importance of quality daily physical education, and re-energize it with an SAL focus Integrate SAL approach into other relevant subjects (e.g. general science, biology, geography, environmental education) Introduce team-teaching of modules where lessons cross between PE, environmental education, health, sciences, etc. Adopt SAL approach to all school activities and games Adopt SAL approach and practices to other school-related activities, including transportation to/from school (e.g. “Walking school bus”)
University/college	Adopt SAL approach and integrate it into relevant courses (physical and health education, sports management, environmental studies, resource management, outdoor education) Adopt SAL approach and practices in all recreational and competitive sport activities, events and facility operations
Physical educators	Adopt SAL approach to teaching physical education classes and activities Work with teachers in other subjects to team-teach appropriate topics/modules Introduce SAL practices in all school programs, activities, events
Sports club	Adopt SAL approach and integrate into sport programmes Adopt and demonstrate SAL practices in club operations and events
Outdoor education center/camp	Adopt SAL approach and integrate into all camp recreation and sport programmes and other activities Adopt and demonstrate SAL practices in operations and events ntroduce and demonstrate SAL approach and practices in all nature and outdoor education programs, activities and field trips
Government ministry of health and sport	Adopt and promote SAL approach to all sport governing bodies, facility operators and event organizers Develop partnerships with ministries responsible for education, environment, health and fitness, to promote SAL and specific targeted initiatives (e.g. air quality, active transportation)
Sport governing bodies and major sport organizations (e.g. IOC, FIFA)	Adopt and promote SAL approach to all sport associations, clubs, facility operators and event organizers Adopt and implement the Olympic Movement’s Agenda 21 for Sport Provide technical material to clubs, event hosts, facility managers Develop partnerships with health and environmental organizations and help organize/fund concrete joint projects
Coaches	Adopt and promote SAL approach in training and competition Develop partnerships with sport and environment groups, training facility operators and event organizers to promote healthier environmental conditions for training and competition
Medical/ health professional association	Adopt and advocate SAL approach to population health and disease prevention Develop partnerships with sport and environment groups to promote healthier environmental conditions
Family	Adopt SAL as an approach/philosophy in all household and family activities Choose active forms of transportation and recreation, if possible Identify ways to reduce the environmental and social impact of building, renovating, operating and cleaning the home and garden

This Sustainable Active Living “agenda” can be promoted and implemented across a wide array of institutions and organizations with a mandate for physical education and sport, including: government ministries of education, health and sport, teacher training colleges, primary schools, universities and colleges, sports clubs, outdoor education centres, sports governing bodies, and medical/health professional associations.

Opportunities exist for partnership between bodies and individuals such as those just described. Not only can partnership help to reduce the work involved for any one organization in the adoption and implementation of SAL, partnership is also likely to increase effectiveness by using the appropriate partner agent for a particular task.

While the SAL approach is new, and may be considered both radical or utopian by some stakeholders, it has considerable potential to reinvigorate quality physical education and sport, while at the same time promoting the goal of sustainable development on a global basis.