Business Description

Development of Business. ​ Ecolab was incorporated as a Delaware corporation in 1924. Our fiscal year is the calendar year ending December 31. International subsidiaries are included in the consolidated financial statements on the basis of their U.S. GAAP (accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America) November 30 fiscal year ends to facilitate the timely inclusion of such entities in our consolidated financial reporting. ​ ​ Narrative Description of Business. ​ General ​ A trusted partner for millions of customers, we are a global leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention solutions and services that protect people and the resources vital to life. For more than a century, we have advanced innovation by integrating science-based solutions, data-driven insights, AI-technology and world-class service. This unique combination enables us to partner with customers to define what best-in-class looks like and scale it across their operations, helping them achieve peak performance. Today, we have $16 billion in annual sales, 48,000 associates and customers in more than 170 countries and 40 industries. We help protect one-third of the world’s food production and a quarter of the power generated while delivering innovative solutions across food, healthcare, data centers, microelectronics, life sciences and hospitality. Our comprehensive approach protects what’s vital, aiming by 2030 to help protect 2 billion people from infections and enough drinking water for 1 billion people while enhancing business performance. ​ We pursue a “One Ecolab” enterprise selling strategy, built on the legacy of 'circle the customer – circle the globe', where we provide an array of innovative programs, products and services designed to meet the operational and sustainability needs of our customers throughout the world. Through this strategy and the breadth of our product and service mix, one customer may utilize the offerings of several of our operating segments. Important in our value proposition for customers is our ability to produce improved results while reducing their water and energy use. With that in mind, we focus on continually innovating to optimize both our own operations and the solutions we provide to customers, aligning with our corporate strategy to address some of the world’s most pressing and complex sustainability challenges, such as water scarcity and climate change. The work we do matters, and the way we do it matters to our employees, customers, investors and the communities in which we and our customers operate. ​ Sustainability is core to our business strategy. We deliver sustainable solutions that help companies around the world achieve their business goals while reducing environmental impacts. We partner with customers around the world to reduce water and energy use as well as greenhouse gas emissions through our high-efficiency solutions. By partnering with our customers to help them do more with less through the use of our innovative and differentiated solutions, we aim to help our customers conserve more than 300 billion gallons of water annually by 2030. In 2024, we helped our customers conserve more than 226 billion gallons of water and avoid more than 4.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. ​ The following description of our business is based upon our