CASE

STUDY

Reimagining Ecological sustainability in sport

Case study

Eco-athletes; 6 case studies

Researcher: Guus Heijnen

We were interested in the real world experiences of Dutch athletes with regard to ecology and sustainability. Below you will find three video’s and three articles. Carlijn Taevernier (Windsurfing) Casper Helling (trailrunning), Julian van Vliet (wavesurfing), Simon den Braber (Triathlon), Jeroen Janissen (speed skating, marathon) and Esmee Visser (speeds skating, longtrack).

How does a student in her early twenties look at climate change? How does it affect her sport and what does that sport teach us about nature? For these and other questions we visited Carlijn Taevernier. She studies Future planet studies (University of Amsterdam) and loves to catch some wind on her surfboard.
We visited Casper Helling and tracked him through the local forests. Casper is a former pro-speed skater who has become a trail runner and coach. In his work with student (elite) athletes he promotes a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. Can we change our attitude to not make any concessions while pursuing medals and records? Can we become more balanced with nature?

For this research project we visited surfer and surf-board producer Julian van Vliet. In this video Julian shares his key insights on the meaning of surfing and how we should transform our economic system based on ecological boundaries.
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