Immediate actions with focus on prevention and preparedness
Health and safety are part of our DNA – we do care about people. Our priority has been to protect the health of our people and to contribute to the battle against the spread of the pandemic.
- Continuous monitoring and evaluation of the situation. Each location/country where TITAN operates has been closely monitoring the announcements and following the guidelines provided by the competent authorities
- Intensified hygiene measures early on. Adhering to hygiene rules has become our primary way of staying protected and containing the spreading of the virus. We have provided to our employees relevant guidelines and we have taken protective measures
- Medical and psychological support has been provided to our people through our expert colleagues or health care programs
- Remote working and virtual meetings. We have been proactive, by providing health guidelines to our employees, renting or purchasing equipment to support home working, minimizing or canceling large meetings even before the virus hit our countries’ door
- Additional protective measures for our people working on-site. We have adopted measures such as decreased number of employees in our plants, rearrangement of shifts to suit the curfew and the special licenses required, temperature scanning, increased sanitization, additional buses for transferring less people in each journey, social distancing, production of own antiseptic when a market was out of stock
Close to our local stakeholders
Living up to our social responsibility, we stood by our neighboring communities at all the regions where we operate, supporting them in addressing their most urgent needs during the pandemic.
To support public health and prevent the virus spread, we have provided medical equipment, which was in shortage, and we have promoted health and hygiene behaviors in the communities. We have also offered supplies to the most vulnerable members of the communities, who have been mostly affected by the crisis.
Additionally, we have taken initiatives to help our local partners and contractors to sustain their business. Moving ahead, we will continue to work together with our local stakeholders and we will adapt our local community engagement plans to better fit current needs and priorities.
Main action pillars
- Collaborations with local authorities, public health institutions and civil society organizations
- Financial support and donation of medical equipment to local hospitals and medical care centers
- Knowledge sharing regarding prevention measures and digitalization of operations
- Awareness campaigns to share hygiene guidelines and promote social distancing
- Volunteering initiatives to offer supplies and prevention products
- Supporting actions aiming to help local partners and contractors to sustain their business within the crisis
See examples of how we worked closely with our local communities during the coronavirus pandemic here
The outbreak of the coronavirus had a significant, although unevenly distributed impact on demand for our products. Nevertheless, as announced at our Financial Results, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our Group was less severe than what was initially feared during the first months of 2020. Construction was deemed to be an essential activity in most markets and all of our cement plants, across all geographies, continued their operation, adjusting production to satisfy the level of market demand.
Continuous adaptation to the evolving situation
Operational measures
- Organized ourselves to work effectively under the current conditions and continue to provide the best possible uninterrupted service to our customers
- Put in place business continuity plans and activated business continuity teams or special taskforce teams to address anticipated disruptions to operations continuity and our supply chain. Think of different scenarios and create as much flexibility as possible
Financial measures
- Strengthened our liquidity position to €400m (cash and undrawn committed loan facilities)
- Scrutinized our Capex Plan and suspended €50m of non-essential expenditure
- Identified and are implementing over €30m of cost reduction opportunities
Looking ahead
We remain vigilant and flexible to adjust further as the pandemic developments warrant.
Moving forward, we continue to focus on our sustainability priorities and think about the longer term, in the best of TITAN’s traditions: taking care of our people, actively supporting local communities, continuing efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, embracing new technologies and innovating.