Do green practices encourage physical activity in sports clubs according to gender?

Abstract

Physical activity provides benefits, especially for women. Yet significantly less women engage in it than men. Several initiatives have been launched to encourage women to partake in more sports. While community support plays an essential role, other strategies have been pursued to increase physical activity, such as the implementation of green practices in sports clubs. The study objective was thus to test the effect of green practices on the intention to perform physical activity, according to gender. Various value judgments were used as mediating variables. The study sample consisted of 1732 participants from 27 sports clubs, among which 520 were women. They filled out a questionnaire that fell into 4 constructs (green practices, quality, satisfaction, and intention to perform physical activity) and 20 items. After verifying the model fit, structural equation modeling was employed in conjunction with multi-group invariance analysis across gender. Next, the correlations between factors were calculated. The effect of green practices differed according to gender in the case of the mediating variables quality and satisfaction; a greater effect being observed in women. Satisfaction and quality were the precursors to the intention to perform physical activity, while green practices had an indirect effect, showing no significant differences. Nevertheless, the effect presented slightly higher standardised values in the case of women. The results obtained suggest that green practices play an important role in sports clubs. They affect service operation, they improve perceptions, and they increase the intention to perform physical activity, especially among women.