ABSTRACT
Some business organizations are built from the ground up to be good citizens—and it pays. Take Novo Nordisk, the Danish health care company and world leader in diabetes care, which evaluates its performance based on the triple bottom line: environmental, social, and economic impact. Novo Nordisk reported a 23 percent increase in net profit for the first half of 2003, which included a 17 percent increase in sales and a 3 percent increase in operating profit. Their dividend per share has increased steadily from 1.15 (DKK) in 1997 to 3.60 (DKK) in 2002 with several stock splits during this time period. However, Novo Nordisk makes a distinction between financial and economic performance:
Finance concerns the market valuation of transactions that pass through company books. Economics, on the other hand, is the means by which society uses human and natural resources in the pursuit of human welfare. 1
