This ESG practices report suggests that:

ARTEMIS takes environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices seriously in its work with startups.

In summer 2026, Work Package 5 (WP5) on sustainable innovation and knowledge transfer conducted an assessment of ESG practices among ARTEMIS partner organisations using the ESG Tool. As part of this assessment, representatives of participating ARTEMIS partner organisations reported on their ESG practices to WP5. This report presents aggregated findings from these assessments, including established practices and areas for further innovation. More specifically, this report considers how the findings from these assessments could support collaboration among ARTEMIS partners and provide inspiration for its startup teams. In particular, this report aims to improve understanding of how ESG considerations can be incorporated into the ARTEMIS startup incubation programme. The key overarching findings from the assessment are summarised above. According to Sekol (2024), ESG consists of three dimensions, which should all be considered through the concept of double materiality (i.e., how your organisation affects people and the environment, and how ESG-related developments simultaneously affect your organisation):

The ESG Tool is an online assessment tool through which organisations can assess how they address ESG. Its use requires representatives to reflect on their organisations´ ESG practices, enter the relevant information into the system, and review the resulting reports, which identify established practices and areas for further development. As in business planning, the value of this process lies not only in the resulting document but especially in collecting the relevant information and considering ESG topics systematically. Therefore, the ESG Tool helped increase awareness of ESG practices among the participating ARTEMIS partner organisations. The aggregated findings below will remain the baseline of this ARTEMIS ESG practices report while the section presenting ideas emerging from future startup incubation cohorts will be updated annually.

Several ESG-related topics appeared across the ARTEMIS partner reports with different levels of development, experience, and relevance. Some partners reported established practices or expertise in these areas while others indicated that the same topics had not yet been examined as systematically or could benefit from further consideration. This does not mean that all ARTEMIS partners face the same challenge, that their activities have a significant negative impact, or that all partners need to improve in these areas. Instead, the analysis highlights topics for which the partners reported different approaches, levels of experience, or available information.

Based on the differences identified in the ESG reports collected by WP5, three areas appeared particularly relevant for collaboration and knowledge exchange (with the most frequently identified differences presented first): developing procedures for measuring and documenting organisational carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions (the Environmental dimension of ESG); developing guidelines for identifying, documenting, and reducing microplastics and substances of concern (the Environmental dimension of ESG); and establishing confidential procedures for whistleblowing and reporting misconduct (the Governance dimension of ESG). These differences create opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange across the consortium. Partners with relevant experience could share their practices through workshops, discussions, or other meetings. Such knowledge exchange could later provide useful input for potential new project ideas and collaboration among ARTEMIS partners.

Regarding how the potential collaboration opportunity suggestions were derived from the ARTEMIS partner assessment reports, WP5 (led by OTH Regensburg, Germany) first reviewed the reports delivered through the ESG Tool. Second, recurring differences between the reported practices of the partners were identified and categorised to form the categories reported above. These differences should not automatically be interpreted as differences in ESG performance, as they may also reflect differences in partner size, organisational maturity, national legislation, institutional context, strategic priorities, existing policies, or the relevance of particular ESG topics to different organisations. The analysis was descriptive rather than statistical, so these differences should be understood as recurring patterns in the reports rather than statistically significant differences. The analysis therefore provides an aggregated overview of recurring differences rather than a ranking of ARTEMIS partners. This approach also follows the request of some ARTEMIS partners not to reveal individual partner names or provide comparisons that could identify organisations through differences in their ESG practices.

The ARTEMIS incubation programme can benefit from the findings presented in this report, as participating ARTEMIS partner organisations have relevant experience with ESG practices and can offer valuable insights to startup teams. At the same time, WP5 also considers the ideas emerging from startup teams valuable, as they may identify additional ESG-related needs and opportunities while developing their ideas and preparing them for the market with the support of the incubation programme. For this reason, this section will be updated after each ARTEMIS incubation round. More specifically, this section will record the ESG-related ideas and business opportunities identified and presented by the participating startup teams during the incubation programme:

As reported in the previous sections of this report, sustainable mobility solutions that reduce emissions from travel between campuses and other locations; solutions that help organisations attract skilled employees, strengthen their employer reputation, and improve employee retention, and ecological building materials and infrastructure adapted to changing environmental conditions could be topics for research by ARTEMIS research teams, whether or not they are directly involved in the ARTEMIS incubation programme. Consequently, people involved in the ARTEMIS incubation programme could use these themes not only as examples of potential research topics at their organisations but also as opportunities to connect startup teams with relevant expertise, research projects, methodologies, networks, coaches, or research groups. For example, a startup team, together with a research group focusing on this topic, could investigate a solution that helps universities or other multi-location organisations reduce emissions from travel between campuses or other locations by helping users identify, compare, or organise lower-emission travel alternatives.

Regarding future collaboration opportunities among ARTEMIS partners, developing procedures for measuring and documenting organisational carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions, developing guidelines for identifying, documenting, and reducing microplastics and substances of concern, and establishing confidential procedures for whistleblowing and reporting misconduct could be particularly relevant. In these areas, some ARTEMIS partners reported more established practices while others appeared to be developing their practices or had less information available. Rather than using these differences to compare the ESG performance of individual organisations, these topics could be used as ideas for future collaboration activities or projects in which interested partners share their expertise, methodologies, and practical experiences. For example, an ARTEMIS partner with experience in measuring and documenting its organisational carbon footprint could share its approach with other partners through a workshop explaining what information it collects, how the measurement process is organised, and what practical difficulties it has encountered. Such activities could support new project applications on these topics.

The ARTEMIS incubation programme can benefit from the findings presented in this report, as participating ARTEMIS partner organisations have relevant experience with ESG practices and can offer valuable insights to startup teams. At the same time, WP5 also considers the ideas emerging from startup teams valuable, as they may identify additional ESG-related needs and opportunities while developing their ideas and preparing them for the market with the support of the incubation programme. For this reason, this section will be updated after each ARTEMIS incubation round. More specifically, this section will record the ESG-related ideas and business opportunities identified and presented by the participating startup teams during the incubation programme:

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