Green Liberty: Fair Trade day - What is the real price of sports equipment?

Sports equipment – clothes and accessories – is essential element of sport. The quality of sports equipment significantly influences our well-being when we take a part in sports activities and achieve results. But what do we mean by the quality of sports equipment? The context of sustainable development expands understanding of quality and suggests examining sports industry from a global perspective, introducing new quality indicators - impact of sports equipment on social field and environment beside personal well-being and effectiveness, and its price – economic aspect.

Those who have been interested to find answers on questions – how fair is sports equipment and what is its real price and impact – participated in the Fair Trade day organized in the Latvian Academy of Sport Education (LASE) on November 10, 2016. This event invited different stakeholders connected with sport to reflect on how the local and the global contexts are integrated in sport, to clarify the real price of t-shirt, to participate in focus-group discussion about fairness of sports equipment, to watch two short documentaries about industry of Nike goods and production of football balls in Pakistan, and to discuss about sport and sustainable development. The Fair Trade day provided integration of academic and practical achievements of sports field, and was based on transdisciplinary approach, multi-stakeholder approach and glocalization methodology.

Seven different stakeholders were represented in the focus-group discussion:  Agnese Alksne, director of the platform of Latvian Corporate Social Responsibility who represented enterprises, organizations and professionals who introduce questions about sustainability (including good governance, business rights, supply chains, etc.) into professional and public agenda; Ilvis Ābeļkalns, lecturer at the Centre of Health and sport education, Faculty of Pedagogy, Psychology and Art, Latvia University who represented academics who provide sports teachers’ qualification and education;  Inese Bautre, sports curriculum specialist at National Centre for Education (NCE who represented NCE; Jānis Brizga, organization Green Liberty who represented non-governmental sector that implements projects and organizes activities to inform society about Fair Trade; Juris Grants, vice-rector of science of LACE who represented academia that supports sustainable development of sports science and practice; Liene Kukule, sport instructor of Ropaži Sport Centre who represented educators of sports interest education; Valda Kursa, director of LASE who represented contracting authorities of state institutions that are responsible for sports equipment purchasing. The main issues of focus-group discussion were about connection of Fair Trade and sport, awareness of the represented stakeholder group of Fair Trade issues, cooperation of the represented stakeholder group with other stakeholders in supporting Fair Trade.

Info about the event in homepage of Green Liberty and Latvian Academy of Sport Education.