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Sustainability

Sustainability

In Bavarian Nordic, we contribute to the society by developing and manufacturing vaccines that provide protection against deadly diseases. While seeking to create a growing, sustainable business, we are committed to being socially and environmentally responsible and to comply with all relevant laws, standards and guidelines.

We maintain a strong corporate governance structure and communicate openly and transparently about our sustainability efforts, which are primarily concentrated on five focus areas: environment/climate, our people, human rights, our products and business ethics.

Our primary impact on the environment and climate is derived from our vaccine production at Kvistgaard, Denmark, and we endeavor to reduce this impact by improving our manufacturing efficiency and processes to optimize energy consumption and to minimize emissions and waste.

We wish to be at the forefront of environmental work, and we seek to be so by maintaining a high degree of compliance and systematization in our organization, in accordance with the principles in the ISO 14001:2015 standard for environmental management.

Attracting and engaging highly qualified employees is key for our success a as an innovative and knowledge-based company with the ambition to grow in size and revenue. To do this we want to offer a healthy and inspiring working environment that provides an opportunity to learn and develop for our employees.

As we are becoming an increasingly global and diverse organization, we wish to build an inclusive workplace that offers an opportunity to contribute to our aspiration – regardless of gender, age, educational background, ethnicity, physical impairment, religion or sexual orientation. And we do not accept any kind of discriminatory behavior – neither verbal nor physical.

We focus on health and wellbeing and want to offer a safe work environment for everyone employed in Bavarian Nordic. To oversee this, we have established a formal organization with oversight of all issues pertaining to health and safety, proactively working to ensure that we comply with relevant requirements as defined by the authorities.

We systematically map both the physical and psychosocial working environment so that the necessary preventive steps can be taken, for the benefit of both individual employees and the Company as a whole. We do so in a close dialogue between management and employees, both in the normal day to day engagements and through a number of established committees, including local works councils and a health and safety committee, which receives regular education and training in relevant areas. We act in accordance with the ISO 45001 standard for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system.

We support and respect human rights. This area is widely covered by our health and safety policies, our Code of Conduct and our adherence to national labor and anti-discrimination laws in the countries in which we operate.

While our efforts are mainly directed towards our own employees, we seek to conduct business with third parties that are in compliance with the U.N. Global Compact principles as well. We have previously assessed the impact of our business on human rights, and it indicated no actual adverse impacts. We will continue to monitor for potential adverse impacts, in order to determine if additional actions are required.

As part of our procurement policies, we perform regular audits of our suppliers, whom we encourage to act responsibly in all matters, including observing international human rights. Also, we conduct our clinical trials in a manner that recognizes the importance of protecting the safety of and respecting the research participants. We do this by applying the highest legal, ethical and scientific standards, in addition to complying with applicable laws and regulations.

Product safety is crucial in our business, and quality and responsibility are important elements of our corporate culture. Vaccine development is a highly regulated area, in which a strong regulatory regime of inspections and approvals sets a high standard for all areas of our disciplines.

We work according to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), which are rules laid down by the European and U.S. health authorities. GMP includes strict requirements with respect to a product’s traceability, quality and purity, which means that quality management is built into each step of the manufacturing process.

Bavarian Nordic prioritizes business ethics as a natural part of its underlying business concept. We want to be seen as credible and reliable by all our stakeholders, and we are committed to work actively against bribery and corruption in all its forms as well as to ensure a high level of IT-security.

Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics (“the Code”) describes the ethical requirements for all employees’ and the Board of Directors’ behavior in relation to customers, employees, shareholders, society, suppliers and partners. The Code includes the rules and regulations in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) that are relevant in connection with the Company's business transactions and negotiations in the United States, but equally relevant in other markets, where the Company operates.

We account annually for the development in these areas in our sustainabilty report which constitutes an independent part of the annual report.

Download our sustainability reports