The Role of Organizational Values for Sustainable Development: The Case of Forest Green Rovers and the Promotion of Plant-based Diets

The study aims to explore the role of a professional sport team’s organizational values to promote the consumption of plant-based diets among fans. The case study focuses on Forest Green Rovers, a football club with a strong mission to sustainable development. First, a document analysis (44 documents, 56,057 words in total) was conducted to explore the development of sustainable organizational values and how the sport organization markets their values towards fans. The findings reveal that Forest Green Rovers was able to overcome concerns regarding their sustainability approach and was successful in implementing sustainability in the value system of both the organization and the stakeholders, thereby stimulating behavioural change. Second, a survey of Forest Green Rovers fans (n = 107) reveals that the adoption of a plant-based diet by fans is positively associated with team value internalization, which relates positively with fans’ intention to eat plant-based foods in the future. Thus, internalization of organizational values may play a crucial role for promoting future sustainable actions among individual customers.