The European Climate Pact Pledge

At Next-Incubator, we want to protect the climate and inspire others to do the same. This is our most important goal. That's why we're part of the European Pathway Pledge. We've committed to achieving the prescribed goals.

The European Pathway Pledge was developed by Global Optimism and Amazon. Global Optimism is a company committed to climate change and sustainability. The project is supported by 482 companies in more than 41 countries worldwide. To achieve this goal, there are so-called Pathway Actions. These are actions and ways to protect the climate.

Emissions
Next-Incubator presents a carbon footprint every year. A carbon footprint indicates how much emissions are released into the environment. Next-Incubator also presents measures for reducing emissions. These measures include, for example, promoting electric mobility for employees and integrating ecological criteria into supplier selection. At Next-Incubator, we introduced zero-waste in the workplace and at events. This has also helped reduce emissions.
This means ensuring that all waste is thrown away and no garbage is left behind. Food, such as catering, can also reduce emissions. This particularly applies to vegan and vegetarian catering. Catering refers to the provision of food at events.

With the help of a first package of measures, emissions were reduced by 1% in 2020 and 2021. The GHG accounting included Scopes 80-1 and was carried out using the analysis tool of the start-up company klima.metrix. The greatest savings were achieved in the areas of business travel and electricity and heat. The use of virtual meetings and the move to a smaller, more energy-efficient office also helped. The remaining emissions were saved through other CO3 projects. The remaining emissions were offset through external CO2 reduction and removal projects, adhering to the most stringent offset standards, such as the Gold Standard.

In the following years, 2022 and 2023, data collection and quality were further improved, and in particular, the emission factors were adjusted to the state of the art and the recommendations of the GHG Protocol (including WIOD instead of EUROSTAT data). Furthermore, the accounting tool from climatepartner was used. The current focus is now on reducing Scope 3 emissions, as well as on initiating and evaluating climate protection measures or investments that lie outside our value chain ("beyond value chain mitigation").

Energy goal
We have set ourselves ambitious goals for 2022. Our goal was to reduce CO2 emissions in the energy sector by 10% compared to the beginning of 2019. We have adopted several measures to achieve this. We now have a smaller office and are focusing on measures related to "improving awareness" and "improving energy efficiency." Among other things, the solution from the Canadian startup ioAirFlow was used in a pilot project to analyze energy consumption and derive potential action measures. This goal was already achieved in 2021 with savings of around 25%.

Passing on knowledge
Hosting webinars, workshops, a podcast and various other formats on relevant sustainability topics to provide new inputs and views from external experts on various topics. These so-called “next skill sessions” are offered every 4-8 weeks with topics such as CO2 monitoring, climate protection projects or greening technologies.

Topics and focal points last year included, for example:

• Sustainability in procurement
• Circular economy in the healthcare sector
• Sustainability Changemaker Apprenticeship Program
• Sustainability Inside
• Hackathons and challenges in cooperation with universities and various organizations.