Environmental management

Environmental issues such as global climate change, ozone layer depletion, use of freshwater and fossil fuels, and waste generation call for collaborative efforts and responsible action. Businesses, like other actors in society, have a responsibility to contribute to environmental sustainability.

At Novo Nordisk, we work to continuously improve the company's environmental performance by setting high objectives and integrating environmental considerations into daily business. In doing so, we consider our stakeholders’ concerns, work in partnership on the international level, communicate our activities, and report annually on our performance. For more details please see the 2006 Annual Report.

Novo Nordisk subscribes to the International Chamber of Commerce's Business Charter for Sustainable Development, is a member of the UN Global Compact and supports the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. We apply a precautionary approach in order to prevent serious or irreversible environmental degradation. Read about our environmental policy, environmental strategy and management system here.

Focus areas
The Novo Nordisk environmental strategy is supported by a Strategy Action Plan providing specific actions to be undertaken 2005–2008 to address these focus areas:


In addition, environmental aspects and impacts of operations such as resource consumption, waste and emissions are managed as part of ISO 14001 activities in Product Supply. A list of Novo Nordisk's production sites that are ISO 14001-certified can be found here.

Climate strategy
In January 2006 Novo Nordisk adopted a climate strategy for the company worldwide. Also in 2006, we signed an agreement with WWF to become a member of the Climate Savers programme. We have committed to reducing total CO2 emissions in 2014 to 10% below the 2004 level. Implementation of the climate strategy was initiated already in 2005. For more information, please download the article: ‘Climate strategy puts energy efficiency in the spotlight’ from the 2006 Annual Report (PDF).


Waste strategy
In 2006, Novo Nordisk developed a waste strategy for the company’s production sites. The objective is to reduce the amount of waste, and the hazardousness of the company’s waste by focusing on waste prevention and environmentally sound waste management. A number of initiatives are underway to implement the waste strategy during 2006–2010: Detailed waste mapping including value stream mapping to identify potential for elimination of waste streams and development of a waste KPI.

Monitoring our performance
The Eco Intensity Ratio (EIR) is a top-level indicator for monitoring of Novo Nordisk's environmental performance within water and energy. It is defined as: EIR = Resource consumption per produced or released unit’. EIR measures the total performance for water and energy of a production facility or a business area by adding the EIR ratios in standard units from each process step or intermediary product in the process flow from e.g. fermentation to packaging of the finished product.

EIR targets for water and energy are defined on an annual and long-term basis and adjusted in accordance with product mix development, as this significantly affects the possibility for achievement of the targets. The long-term EIR target for 2006–2010 is a 2% reduction in water and energy consumption relative to production on average per year. More on EIR can be found here.

In 2006, we achieved the following EIR results:

Diabetes care:

Resource Unit Adjusted target Result
Water m3/MU 9.34 7.79
Energy GJ/MU 6.15 5.50


Biopharmaceuticals:

Resource Unit Adjusted target Result
Water m3/g API 6.54 4.83
Energy GJ/g API 9.61 9.17

Note: API = Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients

Compliance
Compliance is a high priority. We undertake preventive measures to reduce number of breaches of regulatory limits and accidental releases. All incidents are reported to the authorities and corrective actions are implemented to limit the impact on the external environment and to prevent reoccurrence of similar incidents. It is assessed that breaches of regulatory limit values and accidental releases have had no or only minor impact on the external environment. The general target to avoid breaches of regulatory limit values and accidental releases has not yet been met but this area will continue to be in focus in 2007 and beyond. Our 2006 performance is reported here.

We also account for our environmental costs and investments.

The full data set for environmental costs and investments can be viewed here.

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