The first key theme arising from analysis of the data was that the senior management of each MASS organisation perceived, or made sense of, climate change in particular ways. The results presented here, because they deal with perceptions/sensemaking of climate change that shapes the reasoning of MASS cases, helps to answer Research Question 3 [“why are the organisations that manage major Australian sport stadia responding to climate change in the way they do?”].
Whilst climate change is an issue that has been intensely debated in Australia in recently years, only seven of the twelve MASS cases (Cases A, B, C, E, F, J and L) or fifty-eight per cent, reported having discussed it as a management issue for the stadia. For the remaining five cases (D, G, H, I, and K) or forty-two per cent, it has not been specifically discussed by management. In either situation, there was no formal corporate view of the phenomena reported by any cases. A summary of these results is presented in Table 8 below.
Table 8: Results of whether MASS organisations have discussed climate change
VARIABLES
INCIDENCE ACROSS THE THREE THEORETICAL CATEGORIES MANAGERS
REPORTING THIS (N = 14) Category 1 - Publically-owned, not-for-profit Category 2 - Privately-owned, not-for-profit Category 3 - Privately-owned, for-profit
MASS organisations that have discussed climate change (n = 7) Case A Case E Case J Case B Case C Case F Case L A1, B1, C1, E1, F1, J1, L1
MASS organisations that have not discussed climate change (n = 5) Case D Case I Case G Case H Case K D1, G1, G4, H1, H2, I1, K1 Totals 5 4 3 14 12 cases
In those cases where climate change had not been explicitly discussed, it was explained that it had been either assumed to be a general environmental issue, or that no one had raised it as an issue for discussion.
However, all twelve MASS cases did have a basic grasp of what climate change is. That is, most were able to articulate that global climate, often referred to as “weather”, was warming and that the
principal cause of this was GHG emissions produced by human activities. The interview data shows that eleven out of the twelve MASS cases – and nineteen out of twenty interviewees – accepted the main claims of the science of climate change, that is, that global climate was warming, and that this warming was principally caused by GHG emissions associated with human activities. Several
participants used terms that either explicitly acknowledged the role of humans in climate change such as “contribution” (A3, L1) or “human” (H1, K2), or which did so implicitly “emissions” (E1, F1). Participants referred to “global warming” (G1, K2), “rain and storms” (I1), and changes or
modifications to “weather patterns” (A2, J1). Another, when asked, referred to indirect changes such as “water and energy” (B1). Perhaps the most sophisticated explanation was offered by Case A:
Climate change is about modification to the regular weather patterns that we experience all year round (A2, p. 1).
I mean I don’t think our, our board...is any different to anybody else. I mean they’ll see a body of evidence that says there are gases and emissions going in the atmosphere and it’s contributing to global warming (E1, p. 2).
Only one manager in Case K did not accept that climate change was caused by human activities. When asked who at their organisation was responsible for leading their “response to climate
change?”, Manager K2 explained that his work in reducing the stadium’s impact on the environment was not motivated by a belief in anthropogenic climate change:
Well, first up, I’ve got to say I’m a climate change sceptic, so it’s not climate change. It’s more a matter of better utilising the resources that we currently have and minimising the impact that we do have on the environment as such from the waste products that are generated from those (Case K, p. 3).
However, this participant was the only one of the twenty interviewees to describe themselves as a “sceptic” and to contest the basic climate science. K2’s view also contrasted with that of his close colleague and supervisor K1, who did accept the consensus scientific view of climate change.
Although in total, MASS cases based their understanding of the issue on a diverse range of
information sources, media reportage of climate change was the most significant influence. Typically, media interpretations of climate change were influential with nine cases (A, C, D, G, H, I, J, K & L) reporting that media coverage – with television and newspapers in particular – had shaped their understanding of the issue. Nevertheless, some others had read government or industry publications while Case E had even read peer-reviewed climate science research reports. Case E was wary of bias in media coverage of climate change and so looked for what it perceived to be more reliable sources of information, such as the Australian Department of Climate Change & Energy Efficiency, on which to shape their understanding:
...we think in the last five or ten years or something it’s been contaminated with political agendas etc., so the information is different and it’s slanted. We certainly had a look at…we had a protocol that came in. So we get an understanding of what it is, and then we try not to actually put too many other things on it. We don’t need to. We only need to get convinced to a point, so once we decided, “Yes, we think global warming and climate change is real and relevant so we should respond to that.” We just make that decision to move, we don’t go back and reassess that all the time (E1, p. 1).
The next most important influence on how the cases understood climate change was government. Four cases (A, B, H & L) reported state government agencies as influences while federal (Case E) and local government (B, H) were also cited. Interestingly, only Case E cited the Department of Climate Change & Energy Efficiency as a source of information, while none reported the Australian Bureau of Meteorology – who have extensive information about climate change on their website – as a source. After government, industry publications such as those by the Venue Manager’s Association were the next biggest influence (Cases A, H & J). Other influences included energy consultants – Manager D2 relied on the work of energy consultants to inform his organisation of the issue’s relevance – other
industry publications (Cases J & K), and industry partners such as contractors (Case F). Case C also reported having been influenced by scientists who had written about climate change:
Me personally, I’m very interested in the subject and I’ve read a number of books. James Lovelock and Tim Flannery and other people, so I have that interest in it and I guess I’ll hold that information from an organisation’s point of view (C1, p. 3).
A summary of the key influences in shaping how they understood climate change is offered in Table 9 below.
Table 9: Key influences shaping how MASS cases understood climate change
VARIABLES
INCIDENCE ACROSS THE THREE THEORETICAL CATEGORIES MANAGERS
REPORTING THIS (N = 13) Category 1 - Publically-owned, not-for-profit Category 2 - Privately-owned, not-for-profit Category 3 - Privately-owned, for-profit Media (n = 9) A, D, I, J G, H, K C, L A1, C1, D1, D2, G1, H1, I1, J1, K1, L1 Government (state) agencies
(n = 4) A B, H L B1, A1, H1, L1 Government (Federal)
agencies (n = 1): - Department of Climate
change & Energy Efficiency E E1 Government (local) (n = 1) B H B1, H1 Venue Managers Association: (n = 3) A, J H A1, H1, J1 Industry publications (n = 2) J K J1, K1 Industry stakeholders (n =2) E B B1, E1 Consultants (n = 2) B F B1, F1 Peer-reviewed journal articles (n = 1) E E1 Contractors (n = 1) D D2 Scientists (n = 1) C C1 Industry conferences (n = 1) F F1 Internal Communications Department: (n = 1) F F1 TOTALS 5 4 3 13 12 CASES
Most MASS organisations expressed their understanding of climate change from the perspective of three key issues: water, energy and waste. For example:
The areas that we have emphasis is water and energy, okay? So it is climate change in those terms... (B1, p. 1).
That is, and quite reasonably, MASS organisations thought about climate change in terms of what it would mean to their organisation. Case J was typical of this and put it this way:
Climate change to me is I guess the theory that the Earth’s air temperature is rising and as a result weather patterns are changing. So drier winters, drier summers but more
frequent storm events, so one in hundred year storms being maybe one in fifty or one in twenty instead of being on in a hundred. That’s what I think, so more extreme weather events but less I guess what you’d call sort of standard average rainfall (J1, p. 3).
Given that none of the interviewees were experts in climate science, the reported understandings were quite reasonable.
Nevertheless, some MASS cases were still waiting for the full implications of climate change to become clearer. Whilst water, energy and waste were clearer issues, longer-term national energy and GHG emissions policy were less clear to them. For example, when asked, “What uncertainties does climate change pose for this organisation?”, the manager at Case E reported that:
[E1]: Well the uncertainties it causes me particularly is that we can’t develop a strong strategic plan unless the government does, so… [Interviewer]: So there’s a policy uncertainty?
[E1]: Correct. There’s a bit of a wait for us and the thing that I’m fearful of with us is while you’ve got this hiatus of people trying to make up their mind how they’re going to deal with the climate change, this
organisation could actually say well we don’t think is an issue anymore, this drops off our radar a little bit and then it wouldn’t get actually picked up again, or if it did get picked up it wouldn’t get picked up in the same form (E1, p. 9).
When Case L was asked about the implications of carbon pricing, they alluded to uncertainty in government policy. Manager L1 remarked that, “there’s probably still a lot of that detail to be worked out”
(p. 7).
He then commented further on the impending carbon price in Australia:Again, as I say, we really haven’t done a lot of work on that. I mean, at the moment, it’s still, there may or may not be a guarantee that it’ll come in, so I guess there’s still a lot of work to be done on there. So we’ll probably be a waiting a little bit more for that to be clarified a little better. To give us a better feel for where that might happen. We have arranged for one of our financial advisors to start doing a bit of work on that, but at this point in time,...we don’t have a clear picture (L1, p. 7).
Whilst a “wait and see” attitude was not a dominant theme, it was present in these cases and is consistent with other uncertainties about climate change.
Finally, MASS organisations consistently perceived climate change as an issue of cost. To the extent that MASS organisations had thought about the issue, ten out of twelve (eighty-three per cent) saw the phenomenon in terms of definite or likely financial impact. A summary of this perception is provided in Table 10 below.
Table 10: Perception of climate change as a cost issue
MASS CASES IDENTIFYING CLIMATE CHANGE AS A COST ISSUE
MASS MANAGERS REPORTING THIS (N = 15) Category 1 - Publically-owned, not-for-profit Category 2 - Privately-owned, not-for-profit Category 3 - Privately-owned, for-profit Cases perceiving climate change as a cost issue (n = 12) A, D, E, I, J B, G, H, K C, F, L
A1, A2, A3, B1, C1, D2, E1, F1, G1, H1, H4, I1, J1, K1, L1
TOTALS 5 4 3 15
The word “cost” was mentioned frequently during the interviews (n = 254) but only eight times by the interviewer. Whilst not all of these 254 references to “cost” were specifically about the cost of climate change, with some being about general management costs or other issues mentioned in passing, many were. For example, when asked about the implications of carbon pricing, Case A said:
Look I think generally caring for the environment probably costs money and you’ve mentioned carbon tax but there’s other things such as the additional costs of developing a stadium because you are putting in water efficient and energy efficient fittings and fixtures. You are building extra infrastructure to accommodate for that so the cost of stadiums is going to increase marginally based on that and the cost of construction generally... (A1, p. 3).
Case F also nominated higher infrastructure costs for water and energy generation (F1, p. 16) while Case J (p. 3) reported having already paid the cost of significant investment in water harvesting and storage infrastructure. Case B illustrated the perception of climate change as a cost issue by saying that, “in climate change here, the major issue is electricity and the cost of electricity” (B1, p. 4). Case C highlighted increased water costs: “Yeah, hotter drier means we’ll harvest less rainwater which will cost us more” (C1, p. 5), while cases G (G1, p. 9) and H (H1, p. 2) reported concern about increased cost of water supply. Cases D, E and I highlighted increased energy costs as a result of the carbon tax (D2, p. 3; E1, p. 11; I1, p. 6) while Case L thought the carbon tax would increase their air
conditioning and refrigeration costs (L1, p. 7). Case F cited higher turf replacement costs as a result of higher temperatures associated with climate change (F1, p. 11). Case K (p. 8) was also concerned about higher operating costs associated with climate change and the impact of such increases on hirers of its stadium. Overall then, climate change was strongly perceived as a cost issue by MASS
organisations.