Every year we use large amounts of energy to manufacture medicines, and the expectation is that production will continue to increase, hence so will our overall energy consumption. Reducing non-renewable energy consumption and ensuring that we transition to renewable energy are top priorities.
As part of our environmental strategy, Circular for Zero, we have set the target, that all offices and laboratories will source renewable power by 2030.
Performance
Energy consumption for production increased
by 8% compared to 2021 primarily due to increased production volumes
and ramp-up activities within production sites. Energy-saving projects
implemented in 2022 within production sites resulted in annual savings
of 63 thousand GJ.
Energy consumption in office buildings and laboratories increased by 11% as facilities were utilised more through the year compared to 2021.
In 2022, 100% of power sourced for production sites was from renewable sources. Since 2020, we have transitioned to sourcing 100% renewable power through a mix of solutions, primarily Renewable Electricity Certificates (REC’s), Power Purchase Agreements as well as on-site renewable solutions.
Every year we use billions of litres of water. All our production sites are certified according to ISO14001. This means we are committed to continuous improvements, which also includes optimising water use. Each production facility has the opportunity to submit water innovation projects for approval, leading to an overall decrease in water use. It is our goal to achieve ‘no waste of water’ by optimising production, using existing production capacity better and by reusing water whenever possible.
We continuously monitor and report on water use at all production sites globally. Water is included as one of the three prioritised areas in our environmental strategy, Circular for Zero, with a focus on reducing water use and reusing water whenever possible at our production sites.
Annual targets for relevant business units are in place to increase water use efficiency and the reuse of water. We acknowledge that water use should ideally decrease, however as a consequence of expansion in operations and increased produced volumes within our portfolio, water consumption is forecasted to increase. This emphasises the importance of finding optimisation potentials in the production of our portfolio.
For information about our position on water, click here.
Performance
In 2022, production sites consumed 3,918
thousand cubic metres of water, an increase of 12% compared to 2021
due to higher production volumes and ramp-up activities within
production sites.
Production sites in France, Brazil, China, Iran and Algeria are located in areas subject to water stress or high seasonal variations. They consume 13% of the total water for global production. Overall, water consumption at these facilities increased by 7% compared to 2021 due to an increase in production volumes. Implementation of water conservation projects in water-stressed areas led to savings of 6 thousand cubic meters of water.
In 2022, total wastewater generated was 3,552 thousand cubic metres. This includes process wastewater, sanitary wastewater and wastewater used for irrigation.
We aim to have zero environmental impact across our value chain. This work is organised across the company and in our environmental management system.
Our Executive Management is responsible for the overall
environmental policy and for setting strategic direction for
environmental areas. Our Corporate Environmental Strategy team is
responsible for the environmental policy and strategy. In addition,
there is a dedicated department, NN Environment, which is responsible
for the environmental management system and ensuring environmental
compliance in Novo Nordisk.
All our production facilities are certified according to ISO 14001,
environmental management. The ISO 14001 certified Environmental
Management system ensures continuous improvements through a systematic
approach. The production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in
Kalundborg, Denmark, is also certified according to ISO 50001, energy
management.
We have on-site Environmental coordinators at all production
facilities. The coordinators monitor environmental progress and
environmental compliance at our sites worldwide.
For information about our Circular for Zero strategy, click here.
For information about our environmental policy, click here.
Performance
In 2022, there were 75 breaches, an increase
from 12 breaches in 2021. The increase is mainly related to wastewater
and approximately 90% of the breaches were related to a single site.
For all breaches, mitigation mechanisms are now in place and they were
reported to the authorities.
As a part of our goal to be a circular company, our ambition is to eliminate environmental footprint from operations and drive a circular transition across the company aiming for zero environmental impact.
We work to reduce our environmental impact across all areas of our operations and transportation. As part of our ambition to switch to circular sourcing and procurement, we collaborate with suppliers to encourage them to shift to sustainably sourced materials, thus reducing our environmental impact.
Focusing on CO2 emissions from operations, we are building on the achievement in 2020 of using 100% renewable power across our global production network. The next step is to transform our business processes to eliminate the negative environmental footprint from all our operations. It is our ambition to have zero net emissions of CO2 from our own production facilities, global office buildings and laboratories by 2030 (i.e., Scope 1 & Scope 2), and are striving to reduce our emissions year-on-year.
With regards to CO2 emissions from transportation, we have made progress towards achieving our target of transitioning to 100% electric company cars by 2030, with 50% of vehicles in our home market of Denmark now using electrical or plug-in technology. Additionally, we have entered into an agreement with the Danish shipping company, Maersk, to transport our products using sustainable biofuels. All Mærsk shipments are covered in this agreement and represent an estimated 50% sea-freight in primary distribution. We have entered into a partnership with SKYNRG with the aim of reducing our emissions from product distribution's air freight by 27% as of 2025. Additionally, we are also minimising emissions from business air travel by using digital platforms for virtual collaboration whenever possible.
Our supply chain accounts for the vast majority of our total CO2 emissions. We are stepping up our work with supply chain partners to seek to ensure they also use renewable power when producing for Novo Nordisk.
We expect all our direct suppliers to source 100% renewable power by 2030, thus reducing Scope 2 emissions within the supply chain. Successful conversion to renewable power among all our suppliers would result in a further estimated 300,000 tonnes of CO2 being eliminated every year.
For more information about our position on climate, click here.
For more information about our alignment with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), click here.
Click the links for more information about the carbon footprint of our products: FlexPen® | FlexTouch® | NovoPen® 4 | NovoPen® 5 & 6 | NovoPen Echo® & Echo® Plus
Performance
In 2022, Scope 1 emissions decreased by 1%
compared to 2021 due to an increase in usage of renewable energy
sources as a result of two production facilities, in the US and
France, having converted to using biogas. Scope 2 emissions were in
line with 2021.
In 2022, we have expanded our Scope 3 reporting to include all categories of emissions from the GHG protocol relevant to Novo Nordisk. The highest portion of Scope 3 emissions was in purchased goods and services and capital goods. These two categories together make up to 85% of the overall
CO2 emissions from operations and transportation were higher in 2022 than in 2021, partly reflecting the impact of COVID-19 on 2021 activities (in 2022, CO2 emissions from operations and transportation decreased by 29% compared to 2019), but especially due to increased emissions from transportation, as supply chain constraints have forced us to increase our use of airfreight to ensure timely delivery of our medicines to patients globally.
Due to our extensive supply chain, we have a target for all our 60,000+ suppliers, to be reached by 2030, to source 100% renewable power when supplying us. Already more than 500 of our key suppliers have committed to source renewable power, which has resulted in a saving of more than 30,000 tonnes of CO2 since 2019.
Partnerships will be an essential part of addressing the supply chain challenge. In 2022, we made alliances with Kuehne+Nagel and SkyNRG for Sustainable Aviation Fuel that will reduce our emissions from air transport significantly. The collaboration with SkyNRG, for example, will enable us to cut CO2 emissions from airfreight by around 19,000 tonnes every year (equal to 1% of our emissions in 2022) starting in 2027.
Overall, CO2 emissions intensity per employee (Scope 1,2,3) in 2022 was 38.65 tons per employee.
For the latest reporting on CO2 emissions, please refer to the quarterly company announcements in the section Financial results and events.
Operational waste management
We are committed to
reducing waste and have a target of sending zero production waste to
landfill by 2030. The next step is to transform our business processes
to eliminate the negative environmental footprint from all our
operations and driving a circular transition across the company.
End of life challenge management
Cutting CO2
emissions is only a part of our ambitious goal of creating a business
with zero environmental impact. We also recognise the need to
minimise the use of fossil-based plastic, which is one of our major
challenges, as we produce more than 600 million pre-filled pens every
year, which are an essential daily companion for people living with
diabetes. We seek to find good solutions to minimise the use of
fossil-based plastic by innovating new products, shifting to more
sustainable material, and establishing recycling opportunities for our
pre-filled pens globally.
Performance
In 2022, waste from production sites
increased by 18% compared to 2021 due to an increase in production
volumes, expansion and ramp-up activities within production sites. 95%
of the total waste was either recycled, used for biogas production or
incinerated at plants where energy is used for heat and power production.
The amount of waste recycled increased by 18% from 151,244 to 179,003 tonnes primarily due to an increase in production volumes. The amount of waste sent for energy recovery increased by 7% from 21,471 to 22,920 tonnes, primarily also due to an increase in production volumes. Less than 1% of total waste was sent to landfill. In 2022, 16% of the waste was categorised as hazardous waste.
Our take-back of insulin pens initiative, piloted in Denmark, in 2022 achieved a good return rate with a monthly average of 18.3%.