While Novo Nordisk's main environmental impacts come from the manufacturing process, we are able to offer our customers a wide range of products that can improve their processes, so that energy, raw materials and harsh chemicals can be saved in households, in industry and in agriculture. Within the core areas of our Health Care business we seek to discover and market new pharmaceutical products that fulfil unmet medical needs, for the benefit of patients and society. Environmental and bioethical considerations must be integrated where appropriate into all stages of product development, use and disposal.

Optimizing processes
We are continually developing our fermentation and recovery processes to increase product yield and reduce resource consumption. We have recently been developing the fermentation processes to allow for a more efficient use of nutrients and salts, thereby reducing the COD impact in our waste streams. Furthermore, by improving the efficiency of our production strains higher yields can be obtained per unit of resource input.

Novo Nordisk is a global market leader in industrial enzymes. We are continually improving the performance of our enzyme products and during the last three years we have developed 30 new products. We often enter into direct partnerships with our customers on the development of new enzymatic applications, and much effort is put into optimizing our own processes so that environmental impacts are minimized.

Status of 1998-2000 target: Continue to assess the environmental impact of our products and processes.

Progress on this target has been made in 1998. Enzyme Business has worked on accounting for and conducting its development and optimization projects with the aim of obtaining ISO 9001 certification in early 1999. In this process, we have incorporated timely and structured environmental considerations in mandates, procedures and guidelines for project management.

A cross-functional Technology Strategy Group has furthermore been established to coordinate the portfolio of production technology projects in Enzyme Business. Although these types of project are not part of the ISO 9001 system, we have adopted the same structured way of describing the projects whereby consideration of environmental impacts is integrated into project planning and approval. One of the main objectives of the Technology Strategy Group is to ensure that our production technology is developed in such a way that it supports a sustainable production.

Supply management
Purchasing of environmentally sound raw materials is an area that is receiving increased attention at Novo Nordisk.

During 1998, Health Care has, as part of its quality system, finalized a new procedure for the evaluation of key suppliers. In this procedure environmental issues constitute 10% of the evaluation parameters used to rate all key suppliers. We thereby expect to increase the focus on environmentally sound raw materials and their manufacture.

1998 target: Health Care will screen its major raw materials in order to single out items that require further environmental assessment.

We have gone through all of the raw materials used to manufacture our pharmaceutical products. Around 60% of these are easily recognized as not being environmentally hazardous. Data sheets for the remaining raw materials were scrutinized and the environmental impact of each substance was evaluated in relation to when, where and how it is finally discharged to the environment. Of a total of approximately 400 raw materials, 11 compounds have been identified as requiring further environmental assessment.

In our Enzyme Business we have further developed our environmental purchasing strategy, and environmental issues are now an integral part of the international agenda of our Global Purchasing Committee.

In Denmark, a supplier evaluation system was introduced in 1997 in which environmental issues constitute 20% of the total score. In 1998 we have seen an increase in the number of suppliers achieving top environmental ratings and growing environmental awareness and readiness to comply with our demands.

Our challenge in the coming years will be to identify our most environmentally critical suppliers, to reduce our consumption of packaging materials and to further develop our environmental assessment and evaluation tools.

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all living cells. However, phosphates fed to animals or spread on fields are often badly utilized. A proportion of the phosphates contained in fertilizers and manure runs off the soil into water courses, lakes and the sea. The result can be eutrophication, leading to the suffocation of aquatic life.

One of the key questions for modern agriculture as it moves towards a more sustainable future is how to make better use of phosphorus so that minimal amounts are released into the environment.

One answer is to use phytase, an enzyme produced by Novo Nordisk among other companies, in pig and poultry feed.

Plants are rich in phosphorus. The problem is that in most plant seeds and grains that are fed to animals 60-80% of the phosphates are bound as phytic acid. It takes phytase to break down phytic acid, but no phytase activity is present in the digestive tracts of monogastric animals such as pigs and poultry. As a result, most of the phosphates pass undigested through these animals. By adding phytase to the feed, a greater proportion of the phosphates is made digestible, thus reducing the amount in manure by around one third.

We estimate that the amount of phosphorus released into the environment would be reduced by 2.5 million tons a year worldwide if phytases were used in all feed for monogastric animals.

For details on the production of phytase from a genetically modified microorganism see the case study in "Use of gene technology" in the Bioethics Report.

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