Novo Nordisk tops Dow Jones’ sustainability indexes
- September 2003
For the second year in a row, Novo Nordisk has ranked highly on two respected sustainability stock indexes.
Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes
Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes has rated Novo Nordisk first in the Pharmaceuticals Industry Group. The rating reflects the company’s performance across economic, environmental, and social criteria compared to the industry average. Added up, the scores in the three categories earn Novo Nordisk the number one position, as in 2002, ahead of six other global pharmaceutical companies.
Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide.
“We’re very pleased,” says Susanne Stormer, who as manager in Stakeholder Relations is responsible for Novo Nordisk’s communication with socially responsible investors. “These results are based on a scrutiny of our performance from what could be called a 360 degree perspective, and the index is a much-used tool for the financial community. The rating shows that Novo Nordisk’s long-term investment in sustainability is certainly paying off.”
Dow Jones’ sustainability analysts gave Novo Nordisk top marks – i.e. 100% score - for its sustainability reporting, financial robustness, product recall management, and environmental performance.
On the social dimension, the standards for suppliers and stakeholder engagement were rated particularly high. A key issue for the pharmaceutical industry is to ensure access to medicines in developing countries, and here too Novo Nordisk scored well above average. But as always, the analysts saw room for improvement in some areas, such as climate strategy, talent attraction and retention, and brand management.
“In fact, we are already addressing the areas where we need to improve, and we’ll use this information to keep aiming higher,” Susanne Stormer says.
Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Index
Novo Nordisk also received a fourth place ranking in the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Index, which measures European companies. Novo Nordisk was grouped under the Healthcare Market Sector, because the STOXX index does not have a pharmaceuticals category. For the second year in a row, Dow Jones STOXX rated Novozymes number one in the Healthcare sector.
Stock indexes are used to benchmark financial products and measure the performance of fund managers. Sustainability indexes measure the financial performance of a group of stocks, based on how well they create long-term shareholder value by focusing on economic, environmental, and social issues.
This year, the Dow Jones sustainability index performed better than the general Dow Jones index – showing again that sustainability really does pay, according to Susanne Stormer.
For more information, see www.sustainability-indexes.com
