Global Coronavirus (Covid-19) Actions

SAN DIEGO, CA — APRIL 6TH, 2020

Since the emergence of COVID-19, we have been taking action globally to mitigate its impact on our people, our customers and our communities. Our first priority is their safety and well-being.

We are grateful to be working with a global network of suppliers, customers and partners committed to keeping essential services running in their communities.

Wherever possible, we are keeping our operations running, while prioritizing colleague health and safety. Certain sites and offices have implemented temporary closures based on local government or public health authority guidance, and all locations are adhering to the latest guidelines provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and other relevant health agencies.

Supporting our Colleagues

More than 16,000 Xylem colleagues around the world are working with customers to keep essential services flowing for their communities. To assist our employees through this challenging period, we have enhanced protections to limit exposure to COVID-19 including providing additional PPE, and implementing expanded occupational safety and health protocols. We have activated Xylem’s Pandemic Risk Mitigation Plan, including:

• Providing employees with guidance on effective infection control, including social distancing.
• Supplying all sites with necessary PPE material (masks and other appropriate PPE, sanitizer, etc.) to follow infection control protocols. In many areas, we have also provided employees with similar supplies in their homes.
• Addressing any potential worksite contamination events with immediate response, including disinfection and appropriate work-from-home and quarantine protocols.

We’ve also taken further steps to provide supplementary financial support and expansion of paid leave to Xylem colleagues and their families affected by COVID-19, in addition to extended healthcare and medical benefits. Colleagues serving roles in “essential services” – whose positions require them to work either onsite at our facilities or in the field supporting customers while stay-at-home orders are in place for non-essential services – are receiving premium pay.

Supporting our Customers

As water and utility operators – and many of our customers across industrial, commercial and agriculture – seek to ensure continuity of critical services, Xylem is working with them to help minimize supply disruption. In addition to deploying technologies to help maintain the continuity of critical infrastructure, we are running online education and certification modules to close critical knowledge gaps as water networks are put under new stresses as a result of the pandemic.

We continue to work closely and systematically with our supply base to ensure they have appropriate business continuity actions in place. This includes suppliers of both physical components and services, including critical infrastructure providers.

Given that the effects of the pandemic are creating pressure on cargo capacity and the potential for increased processing times at ports of entry, we are, on an ongoing basis, reviewing the implications on logistics and delivery over the short and medium terms. We will provide guidance to customers immediately should interruptions become likely.

Supporting our Communities

As communities around the world step up to fight the pandemic, we are committed to doing our part. Through two new partnerships with Americares and UNICEF, we are extending community grants for local non-profits, and providing new global funding for critical care facilities and families affected by COVID-19.

Our customers and partners worldwide can nominate non-profits fighting COVID-19 in their communities to receive immediate grant funding from our corporate social responsibility program, Xylem Watermark. The program will also match, dollar for dollar, community-based fundraising Xylem customers and partners do to support local non-profits’ COVID-19 activities.

Through Xylem Watermark, we are also donating water technology equipment in support of temporary hospital construction efforts, and our employees are volunteering in a variety of ways, from provision of critical services to sharing WASH education and other personal hygiene best practices in the communities we live in.

In recognition of the many ways in which our colleagues are lending support to the COVID-19 community response, we have offered employees critical services leave and expanded support for employee volunteering. We have also doubled our employee charitable matching gift program for COVID-19 response activities.

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Useful water-industry-specific information is available from:

WHO: Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Waste Management for COVID-19
AWWA: Coronavirus and Water
Water Environment Federation: The Water Professional’s Guide to COVID-19

If you have questions about your work with Xylem, as this situation progresses, please contact your local Xylem support team. 

We will provide updates on our actions regularly.