In September, Ecolab released its second Watermark Study that show the publics concern about water stewardship around the world. The study shows that concerns about the availability of clean and safe drinking water worldwide with people in Latin American, China and the U.S. showing the most concern.
The expansion of data centers and need to power and cool more fast-running artificial intelligence chips has raised the awareness of issues around water scarcity. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that data centers consumed 4% of U.S. energy production in 2023 and that it could increase to more than 9% by 2030.
These industrial applications are a growth opportunity for Ecolab.
“Water-treatment products will continue to be important with increasing regulations, the needs for industrial process efficiency, and the desire to reuse the natural resource,” wrote Faisal Hersi, an analyst with Edward Jones who covers Ecolab.
After the second quarter, Beck and other company officials said the company would institute a “One Ecolab” plan to boost sales. Under the new plan, the company will expand use of its current digital technologies and add solutions using AI and other tools. It also was reorganizing its sales force to drive 5% to 7% organic sales growth and progress toward 20% operating margins.
The organic sales growth in the third quarter was 4%. The strong earnings results were across business segments and geographies, Beck said.
