administrative sciences Article Planning Project Stakeholder Engagement from a Sustainable Development Perspective Gilbert Silvius 1,2, * and Ron Schipper 3 1 Research Group Project Management, LOI University of Applied Sciences, Leidsedreef 2, 2352 BA Leiderdorp, The Netherlands 2 College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, Kingsway Avenue, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa 3 P2 Management Consultants, Slotselaan 6–8, 5328 ER Rossum, The Netherlands; rpj.schipper@gmail.com * Correspondence: mail@gilbertsilvius.nl Received: 28 February 2019; Accepted: 20 June 2019; Published: 24 June 2019   Abstract: Sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time. As the role that projects play in sustainable development is still developing, the integration of the concepts of sustainability into project management is an important trend in project management today. However, despite the conceptual understanding of this integration, the literature still provides little practical guidance on how to apply sustainability to project management. This article aims to contribute to the integration of sustainable development and project stakeholder management by developing practical tools and frameworks that enable project managers to identify stakeholders, assess stakeholders, and plan stakeholder engagement activities with a consideration of sustainable development. The study takes a pragmatic design science approach in developing these tools and frameworks. The resulting frameworks build upon the concepts of sustainable development and form an elaboration of the documented practices of project stakeholder management. Keywords: sustainable project management; stakeholders; project stakeholder management 1. Introduction Sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time. How can we develop prosperity without compromising the lives of future generations? Senior business professionals acknowledge that “business will need to play the leading role in advancing sustainability in the future” (BSR/GlobeScan 2017) and this adoption of sustainability requires the rethinking and redevelopment of business strategies, products/services, processes, and resources (Silvius et al. 2012). Projects play an instrumental role in the sustainability strategies of organizations and thereby the sustainable development of society (Marcelino-Sádaba et al. 2015). Acknowledging the role projects play in developing towards sustainability, some authors suggested that the concepts of sustainability should also be integrated in the way a project management is executed and managed. Early publications on the integration of sustainability into project management include the works of Labuschagne and Brent (2005); Eid (2009); Maltzman and Shirley (2011) and Silvius et al. (2012). More recently, Silvius and Schipper (2014) and Aarseth et al. (2017) observed that the relationship between sustainability and project management is being addressed in a growing number of studies and publications and that today, “green” or “sustainable” project management is considered one of the most important global project management trends (Alvarez-Dionisi et al. 2016; Gemünden 2016). In the publications about sustainability in project management, the topic of stakeholder management is frequently addressed (for example Eskerod and Huemann 2013; Bal et al. 2013; Labelle and Leyrie 2013). This may not be surprising as the consideration of stakeholders is well Adm. Sci. 2019, 9, 46; doi:10.3390/admsci9020046 www.mdpi.com/journal/admsci