The potential of stakeholder involvement to address barriers to nature-based solutions in Europe: A systematic literature review

Nature-based solutions are increasingly promoted as integrated approaches to addressing interconnected environmental and societal challenges. While Nature-based Solutions have become increasingly embedded in international agreements and policy agendas, translating these commitments into local action remains challenging. Stakeholder involvement is frequently highlighted as an important factor in successful implementation, yet the relationship between the barriers to implementation of Nature-based Solutions and the benefits of stakeholder involvement remains insufficiently explored. This systematic literature review examines this relationship by analysing 82 European studies on Nature-based Solutions implementation barriers and stakeholder involvement. Drawing on New Public Governance and co-creation theory as an interpretive lens, the study identifies ten recurring implementation barriers and six benefit categories associated with stakeholder involvement: increased knowledge and understanding, legitimacy and long-term sustainability, trust and acceptance, innovation and better solutions, coordination of stakeholders and resource mobilisation, and ownership and reduced resistance. The findings suggest that stakeholder involvement is particularly relevant to knowledge- and governance-related barriers, including lack of knowledge, uncertainty, insufficient stakeholder collaboration, and siloed governance, whereas its potential contribution to more structural barriers, such as financing, inadequate regulations, and spatial constraints, appears primarily indirect. The study contributes a conceptual synthesis of these relationships and, interpreted through New Public Governance and co-creation theory, highlights the potential role of stakeholder involvement in managing interdependencies among actors, while also demonstrating its limitations as a stand-alone response to structural implementation barriers.