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Sport is a special social event of physical and competitive activity, as well as a means to obtain physical strength and well-being, recreation and maintain health. In the modern world, mainly due to poor or mediocre quality of life, more and more people internationally, engage in physical activity, having as a result, sport to be an important sector of the economy, while contributing to culture and tourism. Sports activities are of major importance for the development of a destination’s tourism product and its wider development. The concept of growth and pure economic growth is now considered obsolete, because if it is not sustainable it will soon cease to exist.In this thesis, the degree of contribution of sports tourism to sustainable development is investigated. Also, the interest in sport activity during tourism, the type of sport activity that attracts more tourism to an area, as well as the intention of tourists to spend extra money in order to have sport events or activities available to them. In this research, questions are made, such as: What is the contribution of sport to sustainable regional development and in which sectors? How can sustainable development be measured? In what way does sport contribute to tourism and the overall tourism product? It is therefore asked what is the degree of contribution of sport to sustainable tourism and regional development in the case of Greece, whether the conditions for development and investment in sport tourism exist and what is the impact on the international tourist.In order to answer the research questions, modern, specific literature on sustainable development, sports and tourism was used. A two-stage empirical research (2016 & 2022) was conducted on a random sample of 1,349 tourists (1020 and 329 respectively), through a questionnaire, specially designed for this thesis. Respondents’ responses are compared before and after the COVID-19 pandemic (2016 & 2022). Results, significant correlations and comparisons are listed using SPSS program. UN’s ...

Climate change constitutes one of the major threats that humanity must address in the coming decades. The Paris Agreement has been a cornerstone in this process, with nations around the world pledging for rapid greenhouse gas emissions reductions and setting ambitious net zero targets. While this climate crisis and the corresponding responses to it were unfolding, two additional crises emerged on top of the contemporary challenges, disrupting the current pathway: first, the COVID-19 pandemic, and then an energy crisis, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This ‘polycrisis’, and the mix of associated challenges, created an urgent need for immediately acting towards addressing the severe socioeconomic implications triggered. It soon became clear though that, despite extended discussions over notions for green recovery, significant financial flows were directed towards conventional fossil fuel-based investments, endangering climate targets. Meanwhile, the scientific community in the domain of energy and climate policy support, and the underlying frameworks employed, faced difficulties providing timely, realistic, and relevant guidance towards sustainability in the light of the current conditions created by the crises. The aim of this dissertation is to establish a new transdisciplinary paradigm for co-creating and supporting decision making in energy and climate policy, tailored to the context of the ‘polycrisis’. This paradigm initially draws from the theory of transitions and socio-technical analyses to introduce a systemic approach to the role of such crises in sustainability transitions. It then introduces stakeholders in the scientific process, in the essence of a co-creation approach, to allow them to express their perceptions regarding the implementation of the transition. Finally, the insights from these two steps are fed in the energy and climate policy modelling process, this time though through a transdisciplinary lens, addressing the limitations that led to the constrained ability of current ...