Novo Nordisk excluded from competition
- October 1999
After having won the Green Accounting Award in Denmark three years in a row, Novo Nordisk was excluded from the competition in advance this year - as stated in the jury's grounds - to give other companies a chance of winning. Prize-winners can not participate the next year, but automatically get a seat on the jury.
Novo Nordisk won this prize in 1996, received a diploma the following year, and then won the prize for best environmental report again in 1998, which later also brought Novo Nordisk an EU prize as the company that had presented the best environment and bioethics report.
However, Novo Nordisk did not leave this year´s award ceremony empty-handed. The company was honoured for its first Social Report - with a bouquet of flowers as visible evidence that in this area too, Novo Nordisk is setting a new standard for alternative accounts.
In its comment on the Social Report from Novo Nordisk, the jury stated: "This is the first time that Novo Nordisk has prepared a social report, but it has still succeeded in presenting an extremely well prepared, detailed, and thorough report. The very comprehensive report is easily accessible. It includes two external verifications from two very different worlds - the world of accountants and the world of NGOs (the grassroots organisations)....Novo Nordisk has the courage to express some distinctive views and exhibits great commitment. At the same time, Novo Nordisk humbly accepts that there is a need for further development. The report contains many challenges to feedback - in the form of an invitation from the management, an inserted questionnaire, and many references to contact persons within the specific areas dealt with. It is very courageous of Novo Nordisk to take up the question of human rights at the same time as describing the factory in China. Novo Nordisk has also lavished great attention on the description of its employees´ conditions, but includes its customers in its social work as well. For example, Novo Nordisk has entered into a project in Bulgaria on educating potential customers in the use of insulin."
