Novo Nordisk meets Fondation Guilé in Geneva

May 2014, Novo Nordisk and Fondation Guilé attended a conference organized by the Cadmos Funds. The event was hosted by de Pury Pictet Turrettini at its headquarter in Geneva (Switzerland), and intended especially for some institutional investors.

Mr. Christopher Quast, manager of the Cadmos European Engagement Fund opened the event  by explaining to investors the main activities, asset management techniques and performance achievements of the Cadmos Fund.

Novo Nordisk then presented its corporate sustainability performance. The Company, leader in diabetes care, has enjoyed a spectacular growth over the last decade, creating a strong brand recognition. Novo Nordisk’s mission is to discover and develop innovative biological medicines and make them accessible to patients worldwide, with the goal to treat 40 million patients by 2020. The company has been building for 20 years a strong sustainability vision that has perfectly been integrated in the core business processes.

After the official conference, Fondation Guilé had the annual dialogue with Novo Nordisk regarding the yearly assessment evaluation conducted by the Guilé Engagement Team (GET). Dr. Thomas Streiff, Head of the GET and Ms. Susanne Stormer, Vice-President, Responsible for Corporate Sustainability at Novo Nordisk discussed the findings of the assessment: Novo Nordisk has achieved as usual a high rating in terms of the quality of its extra-financial communication within its Integrated Report.

Novo Nordisk considers the COP as a ‘compliance’ document that complements the company’s integrated Annual Report, and the format is therefore very simple. One remark that has been addressed with respect to the COP report, was to highlight the differences and improvements that have been made from the previous year, in order to allow stakeholders to monitor changes and progress.

Furthermore, Novo Nordisk will soon launch its Global Labour Guidelines which will offer an accurate description of practices to be implemented regarding the respect of the Labour & Human Rights.

Then the fund manager of the Cadmos European Engagement Fund, Mr. Christopher Quast and the Investor Relations of Novo Nordisk, Mr. Jannick Lindegaard Denholt discussed some specific corporate sustainability issues having an impact on the business model of Novo Nordisk and hence on the portfolio management of the Cadmos Fund.

The dialogue concluded that Novo Nordisk highly deserves its Corporate Sustainability “leader” position.