Municipal golf can become an inspiring cornerstone of how municipalities meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Each municipal golf course holds the opportunity to become a center of community and human Well-Being that regenerates natural systems, meets a diversity of deep underlying needs and provides meaningful workforce development.

About this time last year, in the December 2021 Driving the Green Newsletter, fellow DTG Co-Founder Andre Paul and I wrote and released a white paper titled ‘Municipal Golf as a Whole-In-One Investment in Sustainable Development: New Paradigms of Possibility’. The white paper posits that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals can be a guiding framework for municipal golf owners and operators to prioritize development goals so they can use their urban and suburban green spaces to create sustainable and resilient communities by implementing social, environmental and climate-based programs and initiatives.

Since the release of the white paper, I started my current role as Sustainability Consultant for the National Links Trust (NLT) in Washington, D.C. and one of my primary projects is writing NLT’s first sustainability report. With our white paper’s framework fresh in my mind, I viewed this project as an opportunity to apply the ideas Andre and I outlined in our white paper in real time. So, I enlisted Andre’s help to get this project off the ground and in this edition of the Sustainability Spotlight Series, I’m excited to share with you the initial stages of the project, including some of the interesting results from our first stakeholder survey and materiality assessment and the methodology applied to researching and presenting our data.

Before going further, I want to thank Andre for his many hours of work digesting the data we collected and transforming it into a consumable format. I would not have been able to get this far without Andre’s knowledge and expertise.

Setting the Stage

The first steps in sustainability reporting are creating a stakeholder map that identifies key internal and external stakeholders and conducting a materiality assessment that surveys stakeholders to compare the needs of an organization, in this case National Links Trust, with the needs of its external stakeholders.

After I identified NLT’s stakeholders, Andre and I worked to construct the survey. Drawing upon the ideas in our white paper, we asked NLT’s stakeholders to rate the level of importance of each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and then rank their top 5 SDGs by importance. In addition to gaining some insight on the demographic background data of NLT’s stakeholders, we were also interested in learning why people play golf and if they see golf as a conduit for creating sustainable development. To aid our participants who might not be as familiar with the Sustainable Development Goals, we defined them by providing examples of how the National Links Trust could bring each particular goal to life. For example, SDG #7 is Affordable and Clean Energy and a way for NLT to fulfill this goal is to install solar panels at their courses to offset energy use.

The goal of this materiality assessment is to show to golfers and non-golfers alike, not what golf currently IS, but what golf has the potential to BE.

Processing the Results

After closing out the surveys, Andre used his market research and data analytics experience to create the methodology that would yield the key results of our surveys. What I think you will find supports the ideas and investment we are making as sustainability professionals in the golf industry.

Question: How important is it for golf courses to lead environmental sustainability and community development?

Result: Nearly 75% of respondents agreed that it is important golf courses play a leading role in creating, supporting and implementing environmental sustainability and community development programs.

Driving the Green Take: This result tells us that the perception that golfers don’t care about the environment or the impact the game has on the environment is a misconception. It says that if engaged properly, the golf industry and its participants can become a driving force for sustainable development in the communities where the game lives.

Question: Please rate the level of importance of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as they relate to areas of focus for the National Links Trust's business operations. 

Question: Please rank in order of importance your top 5 UN Sustainable Development Goals from the previous question.

Results: The top three highest rated and ranked development goals according to NLT’s internal and external stakeholders were:

• SDG 8 - Decent Work & Economic Growth

• SDG 3 - Good Health & Well-Being

• SDG 5 - Gender Equality

Driving the Green Take: When applied to the context of how municipal golf can support sustainable development, each of these three SDG’s can tell the story of why continued investment in golf is a win for everyone.

SDG 8 - Decent Work & Economic Growth - Golf is an $84 billion dollar industry that provides jobs for millions of people in our country and around the world. The economic impact of the industry shows that golf has the potential to be a business-oriented force behind creating sustainable development.

SDG 3 - Good Health & Well-Being - A few years ago the R&A released their Golf & Health Report and in it they discovered that golfers tend to live about 5 years longer than non-golfers, even when accounting for socio-economic status and demographic information. If you think about it, it makes sense. Because they walk and take approximately 100 swings per round of golf, golfers do tend to be more active and that activity takes place in a green space with cleaner air and without the induced stress that comes from living, working and breathing in urban environments and concrete jungles.

SDG 5 - Gender Equality - Women constitute approximately 51% of our society yet only 20% of golfers are women. Imagine the impact women would have on the golf industry if it created a more open, accepting and inviting environment for women to participate in this game. Would you agree that the $84 Billion economic pie would get bigger if more women played? Look at the return on investment other sports like soccer and basketball are seeing with dedicated investment in attracting and retaining female fans and participants.

Additional Materiality Assessment Results: Four additional Sustainable Development Goals emerged to show how municipal golf, and in the case of this survey - the National Links Trust, can apply the context of each SDG to its business operations.

SDG 4 - Quality Education - The National Links Trust is investing in a workforce development program designed to bring underrepresented communities into the golf industry workforce. 

SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities - This SDG is connected to SDG 5 Gender Equality and we have defined it as an effort to support local social and environmental justice advocacy organizations to help them achieve their goals. Here the National Links Trust is working very closely with local Washington, D.C.  nonprofit environmental organizations the Anacostia Watershed Society and the Rock Creek Conservancy to revitalize neglected habitats and improve communities and ecosystems for humans and wildlife.

SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation - Stormwater management and pollution is a major issue for large urban environments like Washington, DC. As the three golf courses undergo their renovations, the National Links Trust has a focused effort to utilize riparian buffers, rain cisterns, rain gardens and other green infrastructure and nature-based solutions to manage stormwater runoff and mitigate the effects of erosion, sediment loss, and pollution.

SDG 9 - Industry Innovation and Infrastructure - This is where golf course design elements can help our urban communities transition into the next era of our built environment through stormwater management projects, energy efficient infrastructure, and renewable energy projects that limit resource use and provide solutions to the many climate crises we now face.

Driving the Green Take: At their heart, the 17 goals are an urgent call for action by all countries, developed and developing, to recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth - all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our natural resources and ecosystems.

One important thing to understand about these 17 Goals is it is impossible to achieve all of them at once. So this materiality assessment and survey will allow me to narrow the scope of the framework and help National Links Trust target specific PRIORITIES that can provide the largest possible impacts on the Washington, D.C. community.

One Last Nugget to Take Away

Question: Why do you play golf?

Results: 95% of golfers say they play golf to meet at least one of the following core needs:

• Mental health

• Physical health

• Connections with others

• Connections with nature

Driving the Green Take: What are the core and underlying needs of your customers? Knowing and understanding why people play golf can help direct messaging and programming that engages with stakeholders, enlists them to support your operations and unites them to help you carry out your mission.

Survey Appendixes

Data Methodologies and Sources:

Research Background and Key Objectives:

The National Links Trust partnered with Driving the Green on a survey designed to quantify golfer sentiments on sustainability while informing a materiality assessment of sustainable development goals (SDGs). The survey gathered rating and ranking data of SDG investment from internal and external stakeholders. These date will help NLT prioritize investment areas for leading the environmental sustainability and community development of its three municipal golf courses.

Internal Stakeholder Survey:

• ~ 5 min Survey of 38 NLT Staff

• A brief survey of internal stakeholders sought to gain internal perspective on the NLT’s priorities for sustainable investment. Typically, materiality assessments represent these interests as ‘importance to the business’ (or organizations).

External Stakeholder Survey:

• ~ 5-7 min Survey of 645 External Stakeholders

• Gender:

  • Male - 88%

  • Female - 10%

  • Other - 2%

• Race/Ethnicity:

  • White: 85%

  • Non-white: 15%

• Age:

  • < 35: 27%

  • 35-49: 37%

  • 50-64: 21%

  • 65+: 15%

• Type/Role (overlapping/non-exclusive):

  • Golfer/NLT customer: 88%

  • General golf supporter: 10%

  • Community partner or non-profit: 5%

  • NLT volunteer: 4%

  • Civil/public service: 3%

Data Integrity: In support of data integrity, survey responses were cleaned to exclude incomplete questionnaire interviews and those of questionable quality.

Quantifying Materiality: Driving the Green determined that a synthesis of both SDG rating and ranking questions would support data quality and integrity, and thus confidence in the results of the materiality assessment. Respondents were asked to rank the importance of NLT investing in SDGs on a 1-7 Likert scale (7 being “Most important”). As a follow up, respondents were also asked to rank their top-5 SDGs in order of importance. From these results, Driving the Green multiplied the percentages of high importance rating (6+ on 7-point Likert scale) by the percentage of inclusion among top-5 rankings for each SDG. Having results for internal and external stakeholders then allowed the scatterplot matrix to develop.