Novo Nordisk's production activities in China started in 1995 as a joint venture (62%) with the Suzhou Hongda Group, near Shanghai. The plant is a traditional fermentation plant producing enzymes for the alcohol industry and 130 people are employed there.

"People in China are very conscious of the environment today. In the last 20 to 30 years, industry has developed very fast and the pollution is getting worse. More and more people realize that we have to protect the environment."
Ji Shang Lin, Director of Environmental Affairs and Quality Assurance, Tianjin, and a member of Novo Nordisk's International Environmental Network.

We are presently building a state-of-the-art enzyme plant on a 160,000 m² site in Tianjin near Beijing, which will begin operation on a small scale in 1998. The number of employees at the end of 1997 totalled 110. The data included below is solely for the Suzhou plant. This is the first year data has been collected for this site and the procedure for data collection has not yet developed to the same standard as at our other sites. The data may therefore be subject to some uncertainty.

Environmental conference
Protection of the environment is increasingly becoming a top priority issue in China. An environmental conference, China Environmental Forum, was held in 1997 with the participation of Chinese NGOs, the environmental authorities and foreign companies with production facilities in China. Novo Nordisk participated in the conference where Knud Aunstrup, President of Novo Nordisk China, spelled out in his speech our commitment that we are here to stay in China and we want to contribute our know-how and our products to help solve China's environmental problems.

Improving performance
at Suzhou Since starting up with the Suzhou Hongda Group, production capacity has been increased and a number of investments have been made to improve the plant's environmental performance. A biological waste water plant has been established whereby 90% of the organic material is removed from the waste water prior to release. Water consumption at the Suzhou plant is very high compared to the product output. This is due to the cooling systems which are outmoded and very water-consuming. Cooling towers capable of recirculating water will therefore be installed so as to significantly reduce ground water consumption in future.


Breaches of regulatory limit values
Four breaches of the limit value for noise have been registered in 1997.

NovoGro^® improves rice harvest When enzyme production begins in 1998, the spent biomass from production, containing high levels of nutrient salts, will be spread on local farms as organic fertilizer. Trials with NovoGro^® have been carried out for the past four years and the results show that farmers can increase their rice yields by 10% and decrease their use of artificial fertilizer by 25-35%. When full-scale production has been achieved in 1999, the enzyme plant will be able to supply all the farms in the Tianjin area with NovoGro®.

Suzhou data

Environmental data from other sites