INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT EXERCISES ON THE SUSTAINABILITY OF SPORTS BUSINESSES

The present study aims to inves� gate the role of environmental management training on the sustainability of sport businesses. The method of this study was a survey for collec� ng data. The sta� s� cal popula� on of this research includes all managers of sports businesses in Tehran in the amount of 1500 enterprises. Accordingly, 306 managers of these companies were iden� fi ed as the sample of the study. The research tool was a ques� onnaire used in the conceptual model of Bough et al. (2018). The structural equa� on method was used to analyze the data of the present study. The en� re research analysis process was conducted using SPSS version 20 and PLS version 2 so� ware. The results of this study showed that opera� onal, communica� onal, organiza� onal, and supplementary exercises have a signifi cant eff ect on the sustainability of sports businesses.


INTRODUCTION
One of the issues of the world today is the environmental protec� on, which has been acknowledged and emphasized not only as an integral part of sustainable development but also as an essen� al value of today's and future genera� ons (Jabber, 2015). Instability instances such as inappropriate use of energy, overuse and destruc� on of basic resources, poverty, popula� on growth, pollu� on, etc. are also major environmental problems, and inevitably environmental pro-tec� on and sustainable development are increasingly important (Zhu et al., 2017). With the advent of technology, human problems have become more widespread, making biological disorders as one of the most important concerns of the world today. Numerous environmental issues have engulfed the minds and paved the way for further eff orts to put in place policies that focus more on the environment (Di Giacomo et al., 2017).
The importance of a healthy environment today and the need to strive to preserve it is not hidden. Protec� ng the planet's environment is not possible without the par� cipa-� on of all countries and their people. For this reason, inter-na� onal legal instruments such as the Rio Declara� on, Agenda 12, have emphasized the principle of public par� cipa� on in environmental protec� on (Renwick et al., 2013). Studying these documents and summarizing them will determine the three elements required for public par� cipa� on. These three components are: The right to access environmental in-forma� on, public par� cipa� on in the decision-making (and its process), as well as access to and use of environmental judicial authori� es in the fi eld (Jabbour, 2013). The importance of paying a� en� on to the environment in organiza� ons has led many organiza� ons to have a well-devised plan for environment and ecosystems. However, in this way, human resources as a strong force in organiza� ons can change the extent to which the organiza� on achieves its environmental goals (Tateyan et al., 2009).
Organiza� ons face the inevitable requirements to meet the challenge of environmental protec� on. Proper environmental management has become a success factor for orga-niza� ons (Kramar, 2014). One of the major goals of organi-za� ons is to con� nually improve the environmental status while quan� ta� vely developing capacity and increasing the diversity and quality of products and services (Tao et al., 2016). The implementa� on of an environmental management system, in spite of unstable economic condi� ons and diffi cult environmental laws and regula� ons in most orga-niza� ons aims to improve their environmental performance in accordance with the laws and regula� ons and increase their compe� � veness in global markets (Wagner, 2013). The importance of environmental performance in organiza� ons has led to an in-depth analysis of organiza� ons' environmental performance (Dash� Nezhad et al., 2015).
Business growth is one of the key metrics for evalua� ng the performance and success of an enterprise. In today's compe� � ve world, companies can no longer rely on a steady trend over a long period of � me, and inevitably need con�nuous growth to survive and maintain their posi� on rela� ve to other fi rms. This growth can also take place in areas such as sales, market share, asset, human resources, talent pool and the like (Davari & Moradi, 2013). One of the most important issues in any environment is sustainable development.
The central idea of sustainable development is to meet the needs of the present genera� on, taking into account the needs of future genera� ons. Sustainable development is essen� al for human progress; therefore, measures must be taken to eliminate the contradic� on between development and resource conserva� on so that exis� ng resources, as well as development, are out of order and controllable. Developing interna� onal businesses also contributes to the economic growth of a country and a� racts foreign investment, with a view to sustainable development. One of the main concerns of the country today is solving the unemployment problem. Due to structural reasons, such as increased labor supply, lack of investment, rural migra� on to ci� es, increased par� cipa� on rates of women in economic ac� vi� es, increased graduates in universi� es and young popula� on, Iran's labor market is in imbalance (Ganescu, 2012). Micro--businesses are among the most important employment factors. Therefore, a� en� on to this type of ac� vity has increased today. In many countries, micro-enterprises and businesses play a signifi cant role in employment crea� on and income distribu� on (Fellnhofer, 2017).
Business professionals place special emphasis on iden-� fying the elements that aff ect business sustainability and usually refer to business sustainability in the form of conceptual and descrip� ve models. The Business Sustainability Model, by crea� ng a common understanding of business logic, analyzing and improving business, and crea� ng a clear vision, allows companies to provide the market with their designs and ideas, and thus enable them to maintain and enhance their posi� on in the domes� c and global markets (Kondoh & Mishima, 2011).
Job crea� on has always been one of the basic needs of socie� es, which requires a great deal of investment from the government and the private sector. In this context, small businesses, and consequently micro-employment, with the need for minimal capital and based on the entrepreneurial poten� al of society, enable the effi cient and increasing use of resources and assist governments in achieving their goals of job crea� on and welfare development (Fellnhofer, 2017).
Various studies have examined the role of environmental issues on business. Naderi Bani et al. (2017) found that in order to promote sustainable organiza� onal entrepreneur-ship in sports organiza� ons, the improvement of some or-ganiza� onal aspects, including cultural, environmental, human and economic issues is needed. Bjärsholm et al. (2018) found that, in order to develop sustainable entrepreneurship in sport, it is needed to pay a� en� on to some important aspects, including environmental issues, which could lead to posi� ve publicity in businesses. Ul� mately, these factors make businesses sustainable. Yfan� dou et al. (2018) pointed out that some green prac� ces help to promote the business brand by enhancing the environmental status of businesses, which in turn stabilizes sports businesses. Buff a et al. (2018), which aimed at examining the role of environmental management on sustainable businesses in their research, found that environmental management improves business status due to its impact on social and economic aspects, which in turn stabilizes businesses. Moreover, Ra� en (2015) pointed out that, in order to be sustainable, home sports businesses need to pay close a� en� on to certain societal values, including environmental issues.
The sport as an ac� ve area of the community plays an important role in improving business. The fi eld of sports has much poten� al that have a crucial role in the development of sustainable businesses if they are analyzed and targeted in a transparent manner. On the other hand, in order to create sustainable businesses, there is a need for many infrastructure issues, as the importance of such businesses has made them one of the most important issues of entrepreneurship and management in diff erent fi elds. With a large audience size, the sports fi eld has not been able to u� lize its poten� al to grow sustainable businesses. This has led to serious problems in the way of sustainable business development in the fi eld of sports. There are various ways to improve sustainable businesses, one of which is to harness the poten� al of the environment. This issue in the sport fi eld requires comprehensive and applied research. Hosseini et al. (2017) noted that the environmental aspects of developing sustainable entrepreneurship in sport have not been explored in research. However, research has been carried out in some industrial areas. The lack of research in this area has led to the lack of environmental management currently needed to develop sustainable sports businesses. Therefore, the present study aims to inves� gate the role of environmental management prac� ces on the sustainability of sports businesses in order to answer the following ques� on: Do the environmental management prac� ces play a role in the sustainability of sports businesses? The conceptual model of Buff a et al. (2018) was used to answer the present research ques� on. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model of the present study.

METHODOLOGY
Regarding the method of implementa� on and data col-lec� on, this research is a fi eld study, respec� vely. As the results of this research were used in sports businesses, it is an applied study. The sta� s� cal popula� on of this study includes all managers of sport businesses in Tehran with 1500 businesses. Accordingly, 306 managers of these businesses were selected as the sample of the study. Furthermore, an available sample is recruited as the sampling method. Face--to-face communica� on, email, and cyberspace were used to communicate with these individuals. A� er distribu� on and collec� on of the ques� onnaires, 275 of them were analyzed.
In this study, fi eld and library methods were used for data collec� on. In the library sec� on, by reviewing ar� cles and books in the fi eld of research, the theore� cal founda� ons of research were collected and prepared. A ques� onnaire was also used to collect research data in the fi eld survey. The research tool was a ques� onnaire used in the conceptual model of Buff a et al. (2018). The ques� onnaire generally measures business sustainability (fi ve ques� ons), ope-ra� onal exercises (fi ve ques� ons), communica� on exercises (three ques� ons), organiza� onal exercises (three ques� ons), and follow-up exercises (three ques� ons).
The ques� ons were designed on a fi ve-point Likert scale. The validity of this ques� onnaire was examined in the study of Buff a et al. (2018). The reliability of the ques� onnaire was 0.87. In the present study, the validity of this ques� onnaire was evaluated using the opinions of academic experts. Moreover, the overall reliability of the ques� onnaire a� er Cronbach's alpha was calculated at 0.80. The reliability of the measurement model was evaluated by factor loading coeffi cients, Cronbach's alpha, and combined reliability. The factor load is calculated through the correla� on value of the indices of a structure with that structure. If this value is equal to or greater than 0.4, it indicates that the varian-ce between the construct and its indices is greater than the variance of the measurement error of the construct and the reliability of that construct is acceptable. Also in rela� on to the fi nal ques� onnaire for distribu� on, content validity was obtained using a survey of 10 sports management experts. Thus, the validity of the content of the research instruments was confi rmed. Divergent and convergent validity were also evaluated in this study. Therefore, it can be stated that the present research ques� onnaire had good reliability and validity. Moreover, in the analysis sec� on of the research, the SEM-PLS approach 1 is used, given that the distribu� on of the research sample is abnormal according to the Kolmogorov--Smirnov (K-S) sta� s� cal method. Therefore, there are prerequisites for using variance-based so� ware and one should use variance-based so� ware, such as PLS (Peng & Lai, 2012, 469). The whole analysis process was performed using SPSS 20 and PLS 2 so� ware.

FINDINGS
Descrip� ve results for age showed that 20.2% of sta� s�cal sample were younger than 35 years, individuals with 35-40 years are 39.3%, individuals with 40-50 years are 32.1% and 8.4% are older than 50. Descrip� ve results related to gender showed that 11.8% of the sample were female and 88.2% were male. The structural equa� on approach was used to inves� gate the role of environmental management exercises on the sustainability of sports businesses. Figures 2  and 3 show the results of the structural equa� ons.   As the results of the study show, opera� onal Exercises has an impact on the sustainability of sports businesses (t = 3.095; impact = 0.240). Also, according to the results of the present study, it was found that communica� on exercises had an impact on the sustainability of sports businesses (t = 6.858; impact = 0.383). Organiza� onal exercise has an impact on the sustainability of sports businesses (t = 3.540; impact = 0.171) and complementary exercise has an impact on the sustainability of sports businesses (t = 5.252; impact = 0.243). Table 2 shows the fi � ng index of the model.

DISCUSSION
The results of this study indicated that to improve the sustainability of sports businesses, it is necessary to upgrade some environmental aspects, such as opera� onal, commu-nica� on, organiza� onal and complementary exercises. The present study showed that these exercises, through their poten� als and func� ons, promote and improve the sustai-nability of sports businesses. In other words, to sustain the sports business, some eff orts are needed to raise environmental issues through the exercises men� oned above. Bjärsholm et al. (2018) found that doing some environmental ac� vi� es and ins� tu� onalizing them improve entrepreneurship in organiza� ons. Ra� en (2015) also found that some bio-management behaviors in sports businesses promote brand sustainability by promo� ng brand popularity. Buff a et al. (2018) also found that environmental a� en� on from or-ganiza� ons causes customers to be aware of their environmental eff orts, which improves the performance of these organiza� ons. Environmental management exercises appear to improve the environmental performance of sports businesses. This issue, as a means of adver� sing, makes sports businesses more recognizable in their environment. On the other hand, environmental management prac� ces also lead to energy and cost management in sports businesses, which in turn reduces costs in the long run, making sports businesses sustainable.
The results of this study showed that among environmental management exercises, communica� on exercises play a more important role for the sustainability of sports businesses. Communica� on exercises allow enterprises to implement environmental businesses, as well as ac� vi� es and programs in the environment fi eld, and this output is trans-mi� ed to the surrounding environment. Buff a et al. (2018) iden� fi ed that achieving op� mal performance by promo� ng environmental management is needed to communicate the results obtained through environmental management at the community level. Communica� on exercises appear to play a prominent role in environmental management ac� vi� es, causing diff erent groups to become familiar with the environmental performance of sports businesses, which can be recognized as a major adver� sement in business.
Environmental management can have a posi� ve impact on diff erent aspects of business through its func� ons and the key role it plays in the cultural, fi nancial and social trans-forma� on of organiza� ons and companies. This has led to the improvement of environmental management as one of the most important issues in the fi eld of entrepreneurship. Therefore, conduc� ng comprehensive research on improving the effi ciency of environmental management to promote sustainable business in sport will enable us to pursue the path of entrepreneurship development in sport as well as the forma� on and crea� on of sustainable sports businesses. According to the results of the present study, it is suggested that sports businesses increase their ac� vity in the fi eld of environment by crea� ng departments, commi� ees or human resources. Also, according to the results of the present study, it is suggested that sports businesses regularly report on their ac� vi� es in the environment fi eld. Furthermore, according to the results of the present study, it is suggested to use some human resources outside of the sports business to enhance some marke� ng ac� vi� es, including green marke� ng. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that the use of some renewable resources in consumables in sports businesses will help reduce energy and material costs in the organiza� on.