Ecolab (ECL) FY2025 results: revenue $16.1 billion, up 2.2% on the year

Ecolab sells water treatment, cleaning, sanitising and infection prevention products and the services that go with them, largely to businesses that have to keep processes clean and water usable. It was incorporated in Delaware in 1924. The company reports $16 billion of annual sales, 48,000 associates, and customers in more than 170 countries and 40 industries, and states that it helps protect one-third of the world's food production and a quarter of the power generated. It operates directly in approximately 100 countries outside the United States, through wholly owned subsidiaries or in some cases a joint venture with a local partner, with selected products exported to distributors, agents or licensees elsewhere.

Global Water

The largest reportable segment, made up of three operating segments, Light and Heavy, Food and Beverage, and Paper, which provide water treatment, process applications and cleaning and sanitising mainly to large industrial customers in manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemicals, primary metals and mining, power generation, refining, petrochemicals and pulp and paper. Light and Heavy serves industrial and institutional markets. Food and Beverage supplies detergents, cleaners, sanitisers, lubricants, water programmes and animal health products, plus the cleaning systems, digital dispensers, monitors and chemical injectors that apply them, to dairy plants, dairy, swine and poultry farms, breweries, soft drink bottlers and meat, poultry and other food processors, and it also develops antimicrobial products used directly on food.

Global Institutional and Specialty

Institutional supplies specialised cleaners and sanitisers, infection prevention, food safety products and equipment to hospitality and healthcare institutions, including the warewashing chemistry for dishes, glassware, flatware, utensils and kitchen equipment.

Global Pest Elimination

Pest elimination programmes for commercial customers, which the company describes as a leading service in the geographies it serves, with an extending use of smart connected devices under what it calls its Pest Intelligence model.

Global Life Sciences

End-to-end cleaning and contamination control for pharmaceutical and personal care manufacturers, sold mainly under the Ecolab name: detergents, cleaners, sanitisers, disinfectants, surface wipes, and the cleaning systems, electronic dispensers and chemical injectors to apply them. The segment also holds fluid treatment and purification products sold under the Purolite name, aimed at biopharmaceutical purification, active pharmaceutical ingredients and high-value industrial uses, and decontamination systems and services using hydrogen peroxide vapour.

Materials

Raw materials are inorganic chemicals, including alkalis, acids, biocides, phosphonates, phosphorous materials, silicates and salts, and organic chemicals, including acids, alcohols, amines, fatty acids, surfactants, solvents, monomers and polymers. Pesticides used by the pest business are bought as finished products from producers or their distributors. The company also buys packaging and components for its cleaning equipment. It purchases more than 10,000 raw materials, and the largest single one is approximately 5 percent of raw material purchases; apart from a few specialised chemicals it makes itself, they are generally bought on annual contracts and available in adequate quantities from a diverse group of suppliers, with global sourcing used where practical so purchasing or production can be shifted to control cost.

What it is aiming at

The company states a 2030 aim of helping protect 2 billion people from infections and enough drinking water for 1 billion people while improving customers' business performance. Its markets in water are described as led by a few large companies, and its work outside the United States carries the usual risks of foreign operations including changes in trade and foreign investment rules.

From Ecolab's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing

Written from the 10-K filed 23 February 2026: read the full 10-K.