"We will maintain an open dialogue with our stakeholders and report annually on our performance."
From Novo Nordisk's Environmental Policy

We define our stakeholders very broadly as all groups in society having a stake or interest in Novo Nordisk's environmental and bioethical performance. As the deterioration of the global environment continues and the limits for what we thought science and technology could achieve are transgressed, the number of stakeholder groups has increased progressively since the end of the 1980s. More and more people in society now feel they have a stake in what industrial companies are doing to improve their environmental and ethical performance.

Stakeholder consultation is a very important part of our proactive strategy because the interaction helps us understand and identify new and evolving issues on the global agenda for sustainable development. Examples of ongoing activities with stakeholder groups include meetings with authorities, visits to our plants for local communities and NGO visits.

WWF & Novo Nordisk Biodiversity Grant Fund
Novo Nordisk donated USD 84,000 to a fund for research projects on biodiversity. The first portion was awarded to nine projects and the second portion was awarded to 10 projects at a ceremony at Amalienborg Castle in March 1998. We consider the fund to be a valuable partnership project which we will continue to support.

At the WWF/Novo Nordisk Biodiversity Award ceremony at Amalienborg Castle in March 1998 are from the left: Tommy Dybbro, WWF, HRH Prince Henrik of Denmark, President of the Danish branch of WWF, Bent Muus, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of WWF, and Søren Ring Ibsen, who received DKK 25,000 for a project to evaluate the natural value of a Danish forest. In the background are Lise Kingo, Hanne Gürtler and Mads Øvlisen from Novo Nordisk.

Environmental visits
For the past seven years we have organized visits for representatives from environmental and consumer organizations from Europe and the USA to our headquarters in Denmark. The agenda for the meetings has been based on a very broad range of issues ranging from the safety of genetic engineering, biodiversity and animal welfare to presentations of our products and processes, as well as a visit to our Kalundborg site, Novo Nordisk's largest production area. More than 70 different organizations have now visited us. These visits have been a worthwhile learning experience for us and have broadened our understanding of the many complex issues relating to our business.

Environmental reporting
In the 1997 Benchmark Survey of corporate environmental reports undertaken by the United Nations Environmental Programme and SustainAbility Ltd., the Novo Nordisk Environmental Report 1996 came out as the fourth best of 100 international reports. The 1996 report also received the Danish financial daily Børsen's award for "Continued improvement in environmental reporting".

Conference on Agenda 21
In order to determine what progress has been made in Denmark since the Earth Summit meeting in Rio in 1992, an open conference with 350 participants was held at Novo Nordisk's headquarters in Denmark in cooperation with the Danish World Wide Fund for Nature, the Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature and the Krüger Group, an environmental management company. There was general agreement that progress had been made in several areas, but that there are many challenges still to be addressed.

Environmental compliance worldwide