Top 20 virksomheders respons til global pandemi

Efter omfattende og dybdegående analyse har Truvalue Labs, en  ESG analysehus, offentliggjort en global liste over de 20 største virksomheder, der har reageret bedst på den globale pandemi. Opgørelsen er analyseret med baggrund i mediedata relateret til ESG-indikatorer.

Listen, dækker ikke Healthcare eller Pharma, men inkluderer små, mellemstore og store virksomheder i 11 lande: Østrig, Canada, Finland, Tyskland, Indien, Japan, New Zealand, Schweiz, Tyrkiet, Storbritannien, USA.

I en meddelse skriver Truvalue Labs:

In the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, Truvalue Labs, a FactSet Company which measures sustainability performance, turned its artificial intelligence to identify companies responding to the COVID-19 crisis. It launched the Coronavirus ESG Monitor which tracked company behavior related to COVID-19 across 100,000+ information sources, and made it freely available to the public as an open dataset.

Here is a list of 20 top global firms that scored highly on Truvalue’s COVID-19 Response Metric^[1], thanks to steady efforts in 2020 fighting Coronavirus. These are not ESG ratings, and for some firms, their response may relate to core businesses. We excluded pure-play healthcare and biotech firms to highlight less obvious, oft-overlooked companies and industries in the supply chain.

It is worth highlighting how these companies responded: Either by launching a new product, opening new facilities, developing new logistical capabilities, or collaborating with governments and other businesses up and down the supply chain. The unexpected COVID-19 crisis showed why investors should appreciate these firms for their corporate resilience and their operational capabilities to respond in future times of crisis.

The list is grouped by region and sorted alphabetically.

Asia-Pacific

Bharat Electronics Ltd. (India)

• This Indian firm manufactured 30,000 new intensive care unit ventilators in only four months, record time, according to The Economic Times.
• Production lines came together in only two weeks, and 3,000 engineers helped train health workers on how to use the ventilators.

Blue Dart Express Ltd. (India)

• The Indian logistics firm Blue Dart has a fleet of six Boeing 757s, and eight special sites located through India to facilitate shipments of medical supplies.
• It readied its fleet for a demanding delivery schedule in the time of need, and cut prices for shipments.

Daikin Industries Ltd. (Japan)

• This Japan-based air conditioner manufacturer worked to design a reusable face mask with a replaceable filter, designing it to meet N95 standards.
• Sold and distributed virus-killing air purifiers

Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd. (New Zealand)

• This dairy industry giant based in New Zealand ramped up to meet a sharp increase in demand for a whey product that is used to make high protein beverages that sustain patients who are intubated.
• The company also produced hundreds of thousands of litres of ethanol to boost New Zealand’s supply of hand sanitizer.
• R&D employee Richard Lloyd used company 3D printers to create frames for face shields for essential health workers.
• A homogeniser, a tool to break up particles, was lent to vaccine researchers for a biotech firm.

Shima Seiki Mfg Ltd. (Japan)

• This knitting machine manufacturer pushed out data that can be used in its knitting machines so that customers can quickly spin new types of fabric for masks, including for school children.
• Shima Seiki machines are able to produce fabric for masks that can be washed and reused.
• Besides masks, Shima Seiki owns air filter manufacturer Nippon Muki Co. Ltd.

Europe

Ahlstrom-Munksjo Oyj (Finland)

• This textile manufacturer repurposed machines meant for industrial filtration materials in order to make masks.
• After seeing Coronavirus spread rapidly in February, the company took action in March, converting a plant in Turin, Italy in a matter of days.
• The Turin plant aims to produce 500 million masks this calendar year.

Arcelik A/S (Turkey)

• Turkish appliance manufacturer Arcelik bought a smaller company and started manufacturing badly-needed respirators.
• The company worked with defense contractors to start producing hundreds of ventilators in two weeks.
• The firm worked with Cambridge University to manufacture high-performance respirators in South Africa, the first device of its kind to be produced in Africa, according to Cambridge.

Deutsche Post DHL Group (Germany)

• DHL, a well-known player in the logistics and transport industry, partnered with Pfizer to help distribute its vaccine, which notably must be kept at -70 Celsius, “colder than Antarctica,” as NPR

Gerresheimer AG (Germany)

• Gerresheimer AG is one of a handful of firms globally that produces vials for vaccines that are made out of borosilicate glass. As reported by Caixin Global, “borosilicate glass – made from silica and boron trioxide – is strong, resistant to changes in temperature and acidity, and is relatively inert. That makes it ideal for all kinds of medical uses, including making the small vials that hold individual doses of vaccine.”
• The firm manufactures vials on three continents, America, Asia, and Europe.

Kuehne und Nagel International AG (Switzerland)

• The freight and logistics firm already had a fleet of 200 pharmaceutical trailers ready to transport vaccines at sub-zero temperatures.
• Beyond that, it scrambled to accommodate the need for even colder temperatures, working to be ready for temperatures of -80 Celsius for transportation and storage. 

Lenzing AG (Austria)

• This fiber-producing Chemicals industry firm created a joint venture with the specific goal of producing face masks.
• After setting up near Vienna, masks were under production in April, starting with surgical masks and moving its focus to FFP2 particle-filtering masks.

Smiths Group PLC (United Kingdom)

• This firm signed on to produce 10,000 ventilators for the U.K. government, as part of a consortium, the VentilatorChallengeUK.
• While the firm separately conducted layoffs this year, it served COVID patients by ramping up production of ventilators to 6x normal levels.

Americas

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (USA)

• Air cargo firm Atlas worked with federal officials in the spring to acquire badly-needed PPE.
• In March, the company flew from Shanghai, China into New York’s JFK Airport, according to Aviation Business News, returning to the tri-state area with a load of “130,000 N-95 masks; nearly 1.8 million surgical masks and gowns; more than 10.3 million gloves; and more than 70,000 thermometers.”

Avery Dennison Corp (USA)

• California-based Avery Dennison, adjusted manufacturing operations at its subsidiary Avery Dennison Medical to produce half a million face shields with anti-fog qualities.
• The masks were donated to medical facilities around the U.S.
• Avery Dennison also partnered with another firm, Global Safety First, to produce N95 masks.

Brookshire Grocery (USA)

• This Texas-based grocer offered seniors a 5% discount on groceries and paid its employees COVID-19 appreciation pay.
• It also arranged with the state of Texas to provide COVID vaccines for free to members of the public.

Celestica Inc. (Canada)

• Celestica, which provides design, manufacturing and supply chain solutions, worked with Medtronic to produce subassemblies for ventilators.
• The company also said it increased production of “a portable ultrasound device used by doctors to quickly perform lung scans of patients exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.”

Corning Inc. (USA)

• The iconic materials firm based in New York State worked with Nippon Paint to donate antiviral coating material to hospitals in Hubei Province in February, a vigorous early response to the pandemic.
• Corning also partnered with another firm to scale up its air filtration product capacity.
• Lastly, Corning will be manufacturing vials from an extremely durable new type of glass, Valor Glass, the first new glass composite to get approved by the FDA in a century.

Cryoport Inc. (USA)

• This Tennessee-based cold chain logistics firm uses liquid nitrogen vapor to cool shipping containers.
• With 27 logistics centers in 12 countries, the firm told gasworld that its equipment can keep a shipping container at -196 Celsius for 10 days, allowing not only for shipment of vaccines at ultra-cold temperatures, but for storage after receipt of the delivery.

MSA Safety Inc. (USA)

• This Pittsburgh-based PPE manufacturer’s everyday business was preparing the world for infectious diseases like COVID-19. When COVID broke out, it ramped up production at a North Carolina factory.
• MSA also partnered with healthcare providers to send 65,000 N95 masks to healthcare workers in its home region in Western Pennsylvania.
• Lastly, it developed a reusable respirator mask, the first of its kind approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

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Schrodinger, Inc. (USA)

• The Software/IT industry firm collaborated with biopharmaceutical firms on computational design work supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
• The collaboration, which included Novartis and Gilead, had a goal to “discover and develop novel small-molecule antiviral therapeutics,” according to the Naples News.