This week Crocs is donating 50,000 pairs of shoes to healthcare workers in the US to say thank you for their work during the coronavirus pandemic. Distributing 10,000 pairs a day until Friday, medical workers can request a free pair at getinline.crocs.com. The 'Crocs at Work' shoes are slip resistant and lined for workers' comfort.

But it's not the first time Crocs has donated to the COVID-19 effort. The latest giveaway comes after Crocs gave away 860,000 free pairs of shoes to frontline healthcare workers in 2020, and the company has said "just one year later, there’s no better way to say thank you than by doing it all over again". 

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented action, and tech giants to high-end fashion houses to hotels to supermarkets have mobilised during the COVID-19 pandemic. Click or scroll through to find out the other firms that have pulled out all the stops to combat COVID-19 from March 2020 to now.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, ventilators were in short supply and many companies scrambled to start producing the vital devices. General Motors (GM) partnered with medical equipment company Ventec Life Systems to manufacture critical care ventilators and by September last year had delivered 30,000 machines, completing an order placed by the Trump administration in just 154 days. On average, that’s equivalent to making one ventilator every seven minutes. This came after former president Donald Trump criticised the automaker for “wasting time” on the project, and he went as far as to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the car firm into making the life-saving machines more quickly.

GM's rival Ford collaborated with 3M, the company behind Post-it notes and Scotch Tape, to build respirators. 3M is the world's leading producer of N95 face masks and, with Ford's help, massively boosted the production line of the essential protection. Ford also worked with GE Healthcare to scale up production of the firm's ventilators, helping produce 50,000 breathing machines by August. By May, Ford had also produced 500,000 reusable medical gowns for staff working in the state of New Jersey and was producing 200,000 each week to protect frontline workers. The automaker also donated 15,000 custom-made masks printed with “59th Inaugural Ceremonies” for attendees of President Biden’s inauguration celebrations on 20 January 2021. 

Elon Musk's spacecraft business SpaceX was also committed to the fight against coronavirus in 2020. The company helped to manufacture hand sanitisers and face shields in March last year, and also presented staff at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with Tyvek hazmat suits. SpaceX also hosted blood donation drives at its Californian HQ with the American Red Cross.

In the UK a powerful consortium made up of 14 major manufacturers joined the race to produce much-needed ventilators for the nation's hospitals. Companies including Rolls-Royce, McLaren and Smiths Group worked on two devices codenamed Penguin Oyster and Operation Penguin, and were able to produce 14,000 units within three months, which accounted for half of the machines available on the UK's National Health Service frontline. Production operations closed in July.

Working in conjunction with University College London, Mercedes Formula One engineers completed an almost impossible task. In just one week the auto experts managed to create a new Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, a breathing aid that conveys oxygen to the lungs without the need for a respirator. Four months later, the automaker had delivered 10,000 of these ventilators ordered by the UK government. Licences for recreating the design were issued in 105 countries, allowing other manufacturers to replicate the blueprint and produce ventilators across the world.

Spain was one of the countries worst affected by the COVID-19 outbreak when it first hit Europe and companies there worked hard to minimise the impact of the disease. They include automaker Seat and technology centre Leitat, which got together with several Catalan public bodies to manufacture respirators using 3D printing technology.

Companies have been parting with vast sums of money to battle the virus. One of the biggest donors has been Google, which committed a total of $800 million (£586m). Its bumper package included $250 million (£183m) in advertising for the World Health Organization and government agencies, and funding for a joint project with Magid Glove & Safety to produce millions of face masks. The company also released a number of updates aimed at helping local businesses adapt to the pandemic, including fundraising and marketing features, as well as joining forces with Apple to supply technology for a coronavirus contact tracing app.

Cisco Systems hasn't been stingy either when it comes to funding the fight against COVID-19. On 22 March 2020, the San Jose-based tech company pledged a staggering $225 million (£165m). The donation, which CEO Chuck Robbins said is “in cash, in-kind and planned-giving”, went towards supporting local and international efforts to combat the disease.

At the start of the pandemic, many countries around the world were grappling with a shortage of COVID-19 test kits. The US in particular struggled to address demand. Fortunately, a number of firms offered to help, including China's Alibaba, which via its charitable foundation gifted the US a total of 500,000 test kits and one million face masks, and donated millions of test kits, face masks and other essentials to scores of nations worldwide.

When supplies of hand sanitiser started to run dangerously low, companies, including names you might not expect, lined up to formulate the in-demand product. French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH converted factories that normally produce Givenchy and Christian Dior fragrances into hand sanitiser plants. One recipient of the boutique hand gel was French charity Secours Populaire Français, which received 100,000 tubes to give to vulnerable families taking respite vacations over the summer. LVMH also ordered 40 million surgical masks, which like the hand sanitiser were donated to the French public healthcare system.

Procter & Gamble was in as good a position as any to produce hand sanitiser given the American consumer goods company already made the product. As expected, the firm increased production of the essential. P&G also made face masks and, along with the hand sanitiser, distributed them to health authorities, hospitals and relief organisations. More recently the company has been carrying out tests on an intranasal spray that could offer protection against COVID-19.

Alcohol is a key component of hand sanitiser, a fact that didn’t escape the drinks companies of the world, which handed over their supplies of ethanol, or revamped distilleries and factories to manufacture the hygiene essential. Diageo, the maker of Guinness and Smirnoff, donated two million litres of alcohol, enough for more than eight million 250ml bottles of hand sanitiser. Diageo also donated huge sums of cash to support vulnerable communities in June, including a $20 million (£14.7m) fund for Black communities and businesses in America, and $100 million (£73.3m) to help pubs and bars recover from periods of lockdown.

France's Pernod Ricard donated ethanol and manufactured the end product too. The parent company of Absolut vodka and Perrier-Jouët Champagne announced that it would donate enough pure alcohol to make 1.8 million bottles of hand sanitiser and repurposed distilleries in Spain and Ireland as hand sanitiser factories.

The maker of Bombay Sapphire gin, Patrón Tequila and the eponymous rum, Bacardi clearly has plenty of ethanol stashed away. The Bermuda-based booze company pledged to supply pure alcohol to make 1.7 million bottles of hand sanitiser in distilleries in the US, UK, Mexico, Italy and France.

The world's biggest soapmaker, British-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever, ramped up production and gave away soap, hand sanitiser, disinfectant and food worth €100 million ($121m/£89m). The company also made €500 million ($605m/£444m) available in cash flow relief for small- and medium-sized suppliers and customers.

British petrochemicals company INEOS also turned its attention to manufacturing hand sanitiser. The firm, which is one of the world's leading chemicals producers and made its founder Jim Ratcliffe the richest man in Britain for a time, modified plants in the UK and Germany to make the product and planned to get one million bottles off the production lines each month. The company also managed to build an additional two plants in US states Arkansas and Pennsylvania within just 10 days to further its antibacterial gel rollout. INEOS donated millions of bottles of sanitiser during the first peak of the crisis. It has since created a INEOS Hygienics business, selling the hand sanitiser in response "to increased public need for disinfecting products".

Read more about Jim Ratcliffe and his journey from council house to Britain's richest man

On the other side of the English Channel, French company Arkema altered one of its production lines to make alcohol-based disinfectant. The chemicals company endeavoured to produce 20 tonnes of the product per week at its Rhône Alpes Research Centre. The company was also able to transform its New York factory and supplied the US states of New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas with 38 tonnes of the stuff in May last year.

Germany's BASF started making hand sanitisers at its plant in Ludwigshafen. The world's biggest chemicals company by revenue turned several tonnes of isopropanol into disinfecting gel. Around 1,000 tonnes of disinfectant were delivered free of charge across the world, with around a quarter of the products staying in the Rhine-Neckar region of Germany. More than 100 million face masks were also donated to those in need in the country.

Dow also went the distance to support the health of the German people. The American chemicals firm announced that it would produce 300 tonnes of hand sanitiser per month at its facility near Hamburg. This translates to 600,000 bottles, all of which were to be donated to local hospitals and pharmacies.

While the company isn't manufacturing a product to help slow the spread of coronavirus, Shell Chemicals, the petrochemicals arm of Royal Dutch Shell, made 660,400 gallons of crucial ingredient isopropanol free of charge to companies that wish to produce hand sanitisers and other disinfectants. The oil and gas company has also donated money, fuel, food and equipment worth more than $39 million (£28.6m).

Companies around the globe were falling over each other to produce or donate protective face masks and other PPE. Leading the way was Chinese automaker BYD. After retooling its manufacturing facilities, the company was churning out an incredible 50 million masks per day by June, which made it the world's number one producer. The firm was also making 300,000 bottles of sanitiser gel every day back in March 2020.

DuPont produces the Tyvek hazmat suit, a piece of PPE in high demand during the coronavirus pandemic. Doing its very best not to let customers down, at the start of the pandemic the US biotech and chemicals behemoth had staff working overtime to keep its nine global manufacturing facilities running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company also launched its #TyvekTogether Program in April, which included a new fabric that enabled production of up to 15 million garments a month.

Unsurprisingly the British-Swiss pharma and biotech company behind one of the vaccines currently being rolled out across the world has also been busy. As well as researching treatments for COVID-19, the drugmaker donated nine million face masks to countries around the world with the first shipment sent to Italy on 25 March last year.

LVMH's rival French fashion conglomerate Kering snapped up three million protective masks from Chinese companies and handed them over to the French health authorities. The group bosses also instructed the Balenciaga and Saint Laurent factories to pivot production and make masks instead of high-end fashion pieces. Kering brand Gucci agreed to make 1.1 million face masks along with 55,000 pairs of medical overalls for use in Italy. The Florentine fashion house also donated $1.1 million (£806k) to a fund set up to provide medical equipment to healthcare workers in the country. In December it launched a new round of charity efforts, including a $500,000 (£366k) donation to UNICEF to support the distribution of vaccines across the world, and a 21-day challenge to encourage donations to coronavirus-related causes, with up to $100,000 (£73.2k) being matched by Gucci.

Ralph Lauren also mounted a strong response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition to donating millions of dollars to coronavirus charities and funds, the all-American fashion company supported healthcare professionals by producing 250,000 face masks and 25,000 hospital gowns in the US.

Over in Milan, Prada swapped achingly expensive fashion pieces for practical PPE. The prestigious fashion retailer started producing protective clothing and accessories back in mid-March, and expected to deliver 110,000 face masks and 80,000 hospital gowns from its factory in Umbria, Italy.

In March last year, Italian fashion house Armani adapted production lines to produce PPE at every single one of its factories. Designer Giorgio Armani also personally donated $1.4 million (£1.1m) to a number of Italian hospitals and organisations fighting the COVID-19 outbreak.

Best known for its deluxe skiwear, Moncler wrote a fat cheque towards the construction of a new hospital in Milan, the city where the company is based, in March 2020. The $11 million (£8.9m) donation went towards providing an additional 400 intensive care beds housed in the new facility.

Dolce & Gabbana followed an altogether more ambitious path. Instead of making masks or hospital gowns, the luxury fashion retailer collaborated with Milan's Humanitas University on a coronavirus research project. The study examined immune responses to COVID-19, valuable research that the university reported had “contributed to a much better understanding of the disease” four months later.

On top of sourcing 100,000 face masks for the UK's NHS, Burberry re-tooled its trench coat factory in the English town of Castleford to make face masks and non-surgical gowns. Britain's biggest high-end fashion retailer also funded research that contributed to the now-approved University of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and donated to charities working to alleviate food poverty in the UK.

France's premier fashion label announced on 29 March last year that its workshops would go from making exquisite haute couture pieces to producing protective masks and “blouses”, which quickly gained approval from the French authorities. The boutique brand also worked with 80 non-profit partners across the world to support women and girls affected by the pandemic.

Major retailers also haven't disappointed with their reaction to the coronavirus crisis either. H&M worked magic on its supply chain to supply PPE for healthcare workers, donated $500,000 (£405k) to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and allowed aid organisations like the International Red Cross to use its social media channels. It also donated clothes to hospitals in countries including Turkey, Sweden and China to ensure that healthcare staff had a change of clothing after working long shifts.

Several of Spain's biggest retailers have flexed their production muscles and retooled factories to produce PPE. Fast-fashion group Inditex, which owns the Zara, Pull&Bear and Massimo Dutti brands, manufactured face masks and other PPE items including hospital gowns, and purchased and donated hundreds more face masks.

Investment bank and financial services company Goldman Sachs supplied the states of New York and New Jersey with 600,000 N95 face masks. The Wall Street company supported the fight against COVID-19 on a global level too, having donated $38 million (£27.8m) in philanthropic support to countries hardest hit by the virus, as of June 2020.

Experts from Oregon Health & Science University helped Nike develop a range of protective clothing to support healthcare workers during the outbreak. The leader of the US sportswear industry was able to manufacture full face shields and air-purifying respirators to equip medical staff. Nike has also committed more than $25 million (£18.3m) to COVID-19 response efforts around the world.

Cycling apparel manufacturers across the globe swapped production lines of skin-tight cycling outfits for surgical face masks to send to hospitals and clinics. Italian firm Santini started making protective masks, while America's Kitsbow was on track to deliver 26,000 masks and shields.

Volkswagen spent €40 million ($48.4m/£35.5m) on vital medical equipment from China, which was shipped to hospitals and clinics in Germany in several batches last spring. The automaker also looked into how its 125 3D printers could help make ventilators and agreed to pay full wages to any employee with medical qualifications who wished to volunteer for the country's health service for up to 15 days.

MG did its bit by loaning the UK's NHS up to 100 ZS compact SUVs. The eco-friendly vehicles added to the organisation's transport capacity and were supplied free of charge for a six-month period.

Working diligently to fight the virus, Nestlé directed its efforts into helping poorer communities around the word affected by the disease. The Swiss multinational food company has partnered with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent on the initiative and is donating food and medical nutrition products. In May last year, Nestlé also donated one million Swiss francs ($1.1m/£825k) to vaccine research and development.

Facebook has opted for a multifaceted approach to battle coronavirus. It channelled $100 million (£81m) into supporting small- and medium-sized businesses, has given millions to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and donated more than 700,000 protective face masks. The social media giant says it is working extra hard to tackle disinformation about coronavirus on its platform.

Echoing the actions of other US tech titans, Apple worked doubly hard to supply the US and Europe's hardest hit countries with millions of N95 masks, and its charitable donations to date total $15 million (£11m). On the tech side, the iPhone maker released a COVID-19 screening app and website in partnership with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and updated Siri to provide coronavirus advice.

Foxconn, the Chinese company that makes Apple's iPhone and a whole host of other flagship products for Western tech companies, also moved to producing protective masks. Reacting sooner rather than later, Foxconn bosses made the decision to pivot production back in early February 2020.

Microsoft is fighting coronavirus by combining deep-pocketed philanthropy with intelligent initiatives. The tech giant has donated millions of dollars as well as critical equipment to battle the pandemic and has done everything from setting up collaborative data projects to creating a live disease tracker for its Bing search engine.

Intel is another leading US tech company that went the extra mile to fight COVID-19. After donating $1 million (£807k) to the International Red Cross in March, the Silicon Valley company gave healthcare workers in the US one million PPE items, including masks, face shields and gloves. The firm continued to give generously to the cause and has since donated a total of $10 million (£7.3m) to global COVID-19 relief efforts and pledged a further $50 million (£36.6m) in a technology-based response initiative, targeting everything from patient care and scientific research to online education.

One of the tech firms most dedicated to mitigating the effects of the virus, HP has given away millions of dollars in technology and support to local communities throughout America, and helped to end the PPE shortage by using its 3D Printing team and Digital Manufacturing Partner Network to create medical essentials. Some of HP’s equipment also went to laboratories carrying out vital vaccine research.

Walmart hoped to make a difference with drive-thru coronavirus testing sites, and by October had opened nearly 600 testing locations. America's biggest retailer has partnered with the US government to deliver the project. Bolstering its effort, the grocery chain has pledged $25 million (£18.3m) to coronavirus-related charities. Walmart has since become a location for Americans to receive their COVID-19 vaccines.

Online shopping is key at this time of crisis. Amazon has created thousands of new jobs to cope with the jaw-dropping demand and prioritised deliveries of medical supplies, household staples and other essential items at peak periods. The e-commerce behemoth is also helping to deliver test kits in the US, and put together a $25 million (£18.3m) relief fund for company partners facing financial hardship. Amazon also gave financial incentives to its own employees to get vaccinated, and hourly employees could receive $40 for getting each dose of the vaccine if they had to go off-site. Amazon also created on-site vaccination events for its employees.

Other companies have fought the disease by making sure health workers are well fed. Food delivery service Deliveroo hit its target to deliver 500,000 free meals to employees of the UK's NHS in June 2020, provided courtesy of Pizza Hut, Itsu, Neat Burger and other fast food and casual dining chains. The company pledged to deliver another 100,000 meals the following month and made 70,000 discount vouchers available to those working on the frontline in the UK.

Airbnb came to the aid of the UK's key medical workers and carers by offering them a place to crash free of charge. The online accommodation marketplace, which listed available properties on its Open Homes platform, provided more than 1,200 free stays for healthcare professionals, first responders and relief workers between March and July last year.

Read about how Airbnb grew from one bedroom to a global business

Spain's Ayre Hotels went even further. In March 2020, the boutique hotel group handed over its entire 395-room property in central Madrid to the city's medical authorities, who transformed the four-star hotel into a treatment facility for coronavirus sufferers showing mild symptoms of the disease.

The world's largest supermarket chain helped less affluent Americans during the crisis by donating $3 million (£2.4m) to ensure food banks around the country are stocked up and children who qualify for free school lunches continue to have access to nutritious meals. The company’s medical arm Kroger Health also announced in December that it would be administering COVID-19 vaccines nationwide through its 2,200 pharmacies and 220 clinics.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) joined the good fight by giving companies and research organisations access to its vaccine adjuvant platform technology, an innovation that boosts the potency of a vaccine, reducing the amount required per dose. The British firm also planned to share manufacturing space to help scale up vaccine production and has donated $10 million (£7.3m) to the UN's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

With vaccine rollouts fully underway in many countries, it’s essential to ensure that vulnerable people in particular can access vaccination centres to receive their jabs. In December, international taxi company Uber pledged to offer 10 million free or discounted rides in the US in partnership with Walgreens. Uber also offered a similar scheme in the UK, and was offering a discount on all journeys for frontline workers. US and Canada-based Lyft offered "a total of 60 million rides to and from vaccination sites for low-income, uninsured, and at-risk communities". Lyft also partnered with Target to offer free trips to vaccination centres for its staff. 

China’s leading taxi service DiDi also announced that it would be reducing ride fares for those on route to vaccine centres and frontline workers as part of a $10 million (£7.3m) coronavirus fund. The company works across 13 markets outside of China too and is looking to support all the different nations in their local vaccine rollouts.

 

In America, McDonald's is doing its bit by collaborating with the White House to raise awareness around coronavirus vaccinations. It's just been revealed that from July it will be featuring the White House and Department of Health and Human Services’ We Can Do This campaign on its coffee cups and on the stickers on its delivery orders, as well as on its Times Square billboard in New York City. Customers will be directed to vaccines.gov to learn more about America's vaccine drive. It should have a big impact as McDonald's has nearly 14,000 US locations.

Now read: Countries that have bought the most COVID-19 vaccine