If you work in a museum, library, archive or gallery, chances are nobody needs to convince you that sustainability, inclusion and good governance matter. The real question is different: where do you actually start, with which competencies, and with what practical tools — without unlimited resources or a dedicated department.
That is exactly the question ESG4GLAM, the European Erasmus+ project, set out to answer. For months we have been listening to the GLAM sector — Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums — to build, together with practitioners, an ESG competency model designed for how these institutions actually work, not one imported wholesale from the corporate world.
What the sector told us
We heard from 120 professionals across 16 countries, and complemented the findings with 6 focus groups (43 participants) and 34 expert interviews. The picture that emerges is remarkably consistent — and, in places, genuinely surprising.
The good news: nobody needs convincing. All four ESG domains we assessed — cross-cutting, environmental, social and governance — score above 4.2 out of 5 on perceived importance.
The less obvious finding: 65% of organisations have no formally assigned ESG role, or aren’t even sure whether one exists. This isn’t disinterest — 54% of institutions have already been engaging with ESG-related practice for more than three years — but that practice has rarely been written down as a formal strategy (only 13% have one).
And one figure stood out more than any other: among all 29 individual competencies measured, the widest gap between “how important” and “how prepared we feel” was preparedness for environmental emergencies — a matter that goes straight to the safety of collections, buildings and people in the face of climate-related risk.
From this evidence, a Competency Framework
Building on this evidence base, we developed the ESG Competency Framework: a map of 31 competencies, organised across 4 domains (cross-cutting, environmental, social, governance) and structured across 5 progression levels aligned with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF 3–8) — from an entry-level volunteer to the director of a major institution.
This isn’t a theoretical checklist. Every competency traces back to what GLAM professionals themselves told us actually matters in their day-to-day work, and it’s designed to be used flexibly: a small civic museum doesn’t need to activate all 31 competencies at once, and the priorities of a public library (inclusion, accessibility) naturally differ from those of a large national archive (conservation, risk management, data protection).
Now it’s your turn: we’re looking for 100 sector experts
A framework built on sector data only makes sense if the sector itself puts it to the test. Before we consider it final, we want it checked, challenged and refined by the people who work every day in museums, libraries, archives and galleries across Europe.
That’s why we’re looking for 100 sector experts willing to spend a few minutes on a short validation survey: How useful does it feel? What’s missing? What’s too theoretical, or too far removed from your day-to-day reality?
You don’t need to be a sustainability specialist — the perspective we value most is exactly that of the people who will actually use this framework: curators, librarians, archivists, directors, and managers of institutions large and small.
Every response helps us understand whether we’re building something that works in practice, not just on paper — and helps us improve it before final publication.
ESG4GLAM is an Erasmus+ KA220-VET project, co-funded by the European Union, coordinated by Mazzini Lab S.R.L. Benefit (Italy) together with the University of Novi Sad (Serbia), HUMAK University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Jelgava City Library (Latvia) and Forum Marinum Maritime Museum (Finland). Views expressed reflect only the authors’ views; the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained in this article.
Texts and images on this website may have been created or edited with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence tools. All content is reviewed and approved by the ESG4GLAM team.