Agilent Technologies is Most Sustainable Health Care Company, Survey Shows – PharmaLive

For the second 12 months in a row, California-based Agilent Technologies, a frontrunner in diagnostics and utilized chemical markets, is ranked as one in every of Barron’s most sustainable companies. Agilent is one in every of seven well being care corporations to make the fourth annual checklist of 100 corporations compiled by the publication.

For the 2021 rating, Agilent got here in second place, behind client electronics big Greatest Purchase. In 2020, Agilent held the highest spot on probably the most sustainable checklist. 2021 marks the third 12 months in a row Agilent has been ranked within the high three “Most Sustainable Corporations in America” by Barron’s.

“We’re very happy to once more be named one in every of America’s Most Sustainable Corporations,” Neil Rees, Agilent vp of Office Companies mentioned in a statement. “We have now been the chief in our business all 4 years the Barron’s checklist has been printed and we’re very pleased with our report. Sustainability has lengthy been a key precedence at Agilent.”

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The opposite well being care corporations included in Barron’s checklist are Merck, which ranked 50^th; Edwards Life Sciences, which holds the 54^th place; West Prescription drugs, which got here in at quantity 57; Amicus Therapeutics, which ranked 77^th; Agios Pharmaceuticals, which holds the 88^th place; and Amgen, at quantity 100. Amgen, Merck, Agios and Amicus weren’t included within the 2020 lists. Final 12 months, West Prescription drugs was ranked 54^th and Edwards held the 93^rd place.

The soundness of an organization is a key standards for job seekers, which a current BioSpace survey confirmed. One of many questions posed within the BioSpace analysis sought solutions to how job seekers really feel about on the lookout for work throughout a worldwide pandemic. The highest concern raised by 37% of these polled was a priority about firm stability.

The highest 100 checklist, compiled by Calvert Analysis & Administration, ranked corporations by how they carried out for 5 key constituencies: shareholders, staff, prospects, neighborhood and the planet, Barron’s mentioned.

The thought of sustainability has a number of meanings. For the Barron’s rating, it contains quite a few completely different metrics, together with environmental, social and company governance, which measures “how an organization’s managers make selections and plan for the long run in areas past profitability.” Barron’s famous that its checklist seems past an organization’s return for shareholders and focuses on stakeholders, impression past revenue statements. Stakeholders in an organization embody staff, prospects, the neighborhood wherein they function and the atmosphere.

As Barron’s mentioned, the rankings embody efforts from these corporations to “mitigate their impression on the atmosphere, in addition to bolstering worker welfare, neighborhood well being, and buyer satisfaction.”

For Agilent, one of many key components it continues to attain so excessive on the Barron’s checklist was its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not a lot within the method of diagnostics or the way it used 3-D expertise to make face shields, protecting masks and hand sanitizer for well being care employees, however in the way it handled its personal staff throughout a time of uncertainty. Agilent assured jobs and guarded base pay in the course of the pandemic, the publication mentioned. Moreover, Agilent elevated its use of photo voltaic vitality in 2020.

Mike McMullen, Agilent’s chief government officer, mentioned a give attention to sustainability is necessary to the corporate and is solely good enterprise. Along with an elevated use of solar energy, Agilent additionally supplied devices that use much less energy and chemical solvents, and shrinking packaging, Barron’s mentioned. Because of that focus, throughout 2020, Agilent’s market share elevated, as did its profitability.

“Plenty of our largest prospects need to hear straight about what we’re doing in sustainability and asking us to assist them,” McMullen instructed Barron’s.