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Planetary Health
Portfolio ESG highlights 2025
As part of annual monitoring and reporting campaign, Forbion collected data on several environmental, social and governance indicators for the six portfolio companies in the BioEconomy Fund I for 202511. In this section, we highlight how these companies performed on selected indicators, including ESG-related policies, composition of employees by gender and carbon emissions.
Policies
With respect to formalized policies and processes, many companies have not yet reached the maturity stage when these are required by law or become a necessity. This is reflected in the percentages of companies that had ESG-related policies in place in 2025. As our portfolio companies grow and professionalize their operations, formalized policy frameworks will follow. This includes strategic guidance and input from VC investors like Forbion.
Proportion of BioEconomy portfolio companies with ESG-related policies at the end of 2025
Source: Forbion BioEconomy ESG Survey 2025.
11. Six companies were invited to respond to the ESG Survey 2025. All of them responded.
Workforce gender
The gender composition of BioEconomy’s portfolio companies’ employees, C-suite and Boards in 2025 shows a mixed picture. While females represented 47% of all employees across all portfolio companies, they accounted for only 22% in C-suite positions and 8% on Boards. Female representation in Boards and C-suite of BioEconomy portfolio is thus significantly lower than in Forbion’s Life Sciences companies.
Composition of portfolio companies’ workforce, C-suite and Boards by gender
at the end of 2025
Sustainability practices
It is encouraging to see several ESG practices at the early-stage companies in the BioEconomy portfolio. One third of the companies have implemented circularity principles in their product and business models. Circularity principles focus on designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use at their highest value, and regenerating natural systems.12 Over 80% of companies conduct an employee engagement survey and two-thirds have a whistleblower procedure in place. As companies grow and mature, their operations will become better organized and more formalized.
Selected practices of Forbion BioEconomy portfolio companies at the end of 2025
33%
Companies with circularity principles implemented
83%
Companies with an employee survey
67%
Companies with whistleblower procedure
83%
Companies with Health & Safety policy
12. For more information on circular economy principles see Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Source: Forbion BioEconomy ESG Survey 2025.
Carbon emissions
Most BioEconomy companies calculated their emissions with the help of the CO2 calculator on the Novata platform which we used to collect ESG and impact data for 2025. All six companies provided emissions data.
Scope 3 emissions represent the largest part of the total GHG emissions of BioEconomy portfolio companies in 2025, followed by Scope 2 and Scope 1. It is important to note that due to the early development stage of portfolio companies the detailed data that is needed for the calculation of emissions is often not available. Also due to this reason, the carbon emissions of BioEconomy portfolio companies, in particular of Scope 1, are rather limited.
Consolidated portfolio GHG emissions by scope and per FTE in 2025 (tCO2e)
Source: Forbion BioEconomy ESG Survey 2025.
Total GHG emissions (tCO2e)
2,941
2025
Total emissions per FTE (tCO2e)
10
2025