The Routledge Handbook on Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement

This handbook emphasizes the importance of Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement (MSE) as a management approach, cutting across various disciplines like stakeholder theory, natural resource management, impact assessment and responsible business. It is an essential resource for researchers, developers, investors and civil society organisations.

Karin Buhmann is Professor of Business & Human Rights at Copenhagen Business School (CBS); and Professor and Director of the Centre for Law, Sustainability & Justice at the University of Southern Denmark. Buhmann’s expertise covers business responsibilities for human rights, including risk-based (corporate sustainability) due diligence and its elements, in particular meaningful stakeholder engagement and what this entails from the perspective of rights-holders; ideals and practice of ‘smart-mix regulation’; human rights and related social issues in regard to climate change and a fair and just transition; regulatory strategies to advance responsible business conduct (RBC), including and non-financial reporting as a potential driver of organizational change. Buhmann has published widely in international journals, edited volumes, and monographs. She leads collaborative and international research projects and networks on sustainability governance and meaningful stakeholder engagement, connecting scholars in the Global South and the High North (Arctic).

Alberto Fonseca is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil. He is a former president and scientific director of the Brazilian Association for Impact Assessment. He held positions in the private and public sectors working with EIA, licensing, and auditing in dozens of projects and industrial sites. His current consulting and research interests are centered on policy evaluation, EIA policy making, sustainability assessment, spatial analysis, and territorial planning. Alberto is also an Associate Editor for the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review.

Nathan Andrews is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University. A key aspect of Dr. Andrews’ research focuses on the global political economy/ecology of natural resource extraction and development. His peer-reviewed publications on this topic have appeared in journals such as International Affairs, Resources Policy, World Development, among others. Dr. Andrews’ latest books include a monograph, Gold Mining and the Discourses of Corporate Social Responsibility in Ghana (2019), a co-authored monograph, Oil and Development in Ghana: Beyond the Resource Curse (2021), and co-edited volumes, Natural Resource-Based Development in Africa: Panacea or Pandora’s Box? (2022) and Extractive Bargains: Natural Resources and the State-Society Nexus (2023). Dr. Andrews serves as co-editor in chief of African Security.

Giuseppe Amatulli is a postdoctoral fellow in the Rebuilding First Nations Governance (RFNG) Research Project, whose main goal is to enhance the capacity building of those First Nations who want to transition from the Indian Act to self-governance. Giuseppe has been doing research with and for Doig River First Nation since 2019; his research methodology, anchored in a strong community-based approach, allows him to perform cutting-edge qualitative research (using various methods such as ethnography, participatory observation, interviews, and discourse analysis) at the intersection of socio-legal and environmental anthropology, intertwined with Human Rights Law, Indigenous Governance, and Public Policy. Giuseppe obtained his PhD in Anthropology from Durham University (2023).