A systematic approach for identifying key stakeholders in sustainable product development—a missing step to realize decades of sustainability work

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2026

Introduction – The manufacturing industry faces transformative challenges toward a circular economy. A key challenge in circularity is creating value for all value chain partners. In this study, the focus is on the aerospace industry and the challenge of creating resilient solutions with suppliers, given the product’s long lifespan of about 30 years, a long production period of about 20 years, and a long product and technology development time of about 7 years. The overall goal of this research is to increase partners’ capabilities to create and develop long-term, sustainable, resilient, and circular solutions within a value chain. Methods – Building on a longitudinal study conducted within an aerospace company, this research applies and further develops a systematic approach for identifying key stakeholders in sustainable product development, now extended to incorporate a circularity dimension. The research methodology consisted of three methods: identifying stakeholders in the life cycle, classifying the key stakeholders using the stakeholder salience model, and conducting interviews. The stakeholder mapping was conducted using a longitudinal approach at two time points: 2015 and 2025, at the same case company. It was conducted through several workshops. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2025 with key stakeholders representing different parts of the aerospace value chain. Results – The study indicates an increasing complexity in the company’s value chain. Compared to ten years ago, the context now reflects a stronger emphasis on sustainability and circularity, requiring broader engagement and collaboration. In addition, some key factors are identified that facilitate effective collaboration among the key stakeholders in aerospace for a resilient and sustainable product development. Discussion – The proposed stakeholder analysis method can provide a structured approach to identifying, classifying, and prioritizing key stakeholders within complex value chains, thereby supporting product design teams in developing strategic plans for circular solutions. The method helps understand which actors are most critical to collaborate with when developing sustainable and circular solutions. Furthermore, the method enables discussion of how stakeholder roles may need to evolve to support more circular and resilient value chains and identifies stakeholders that have the potential to either drive or hinder the implementation of circular solutions.