Item 1. BUSINESS

Business Overview

Xylem is a leading global water technology company with 2020 revenues of $4.9 billion and approximately 16,700 employees worldwide, of which approximately 1,100 were temporary or fixed-term employees or interns. We design, manufacture and service highly engineered products and solutions across a wide variety of critical applications primarily in the water sector, but also in energy. Our broad portfolio of products, services and solutions addresses customer needs across the water cycle, from the delivery, measurement and use of drinking water, to the collection, testing, analysis and treatment of wastewater, to the return of water to the environment.

We have differentiated market positions in core application areas including transport, treatment, dewatering, test, smart metering, infrastructure assessment services, digital solutions, commercial and residential building services and industrial processes. Setting us apart is a unique set of global assets that include:

• Market-leading brands, some of which have been in use for more than 100 years

• Global distribution networks consisting of direct sales forces and independent channel partners serving a diverse customer base in approximately 150 countries

• A substantial global installed base that provides for steady recurring revenue

• A strong history of bringing innovative products, solutions, and business models to customers

• A strong financial position and cash generation profile that enables us to fund strategic organic and inorganic growth initiatives, and consistently return capital to shareholders

• A demonstrated commitment to corporate governance, social and environmental sustainability and delivering a positive impact to our customers, communities and employees

• A dedicated, qualified and technologically advanced group of experienced employees focused on safely satisfying our customers' requirements in the water and energy spaces

Our vision is to create a world in which water issues are no longer a constraint to health, prosperity and sustainable development.

Our Industry

Our planet faces serious water challenges. Less than 1% of the total water available on earth is fresh water, and these supplies are under threat due to factors such as the draining of aquifers, increased pollution and the effects of climate change. Demand for fresh water is rising rapidly due to population growth, industrial expansion, and increased agricultural development, with consumption estimated to double every 20 years. By 2025, more than 30% of the world’s population is expected to live in areas without adequate water supply. Even in developed countries with sufficient clean water supply, existing water supply infrastructure is aging and often inefficient. In the U.S., deteriorating pipe systems, theft or inaccurate meters result in approximately one out of every six gallons of treated water being lost prior to reaching the end customer. This problem of "non-revenue" water is a major financial challenge of many utilities globally, especially in developing markets where non-revenue water can represent 10% to 60% or more of net water produced. These and other challenges create opportunities for growth in the global water industry. We estimate the total addressable market size, excluding operational expenditures related to labor, energy, and chemicals, to be approximately $600 billion.

Global water needs cannot be met without streamlining the water industry’s cost structure with technologies that fundamentally change the provision and management of water. We compete in areas that are pivotal to improving "water affordability" and "resilience", while reducing the impact of "water scarcity". "Water affordability" refers to the more efficient delivery, use and treatment of clean water and wastewater. "Resilience" refers to the management of water-related risks, including climate change mitigation, and the resilience of water infrastructure. "Water scarcity" refers to the management of limited supplies of water due to climate change, overpopulation and pollution. Our customers often face all three of these challenges, ranging from inefficient and aging water distribution networks and energy-intensive or unreliable water and wastewater management systems (which require improvements in water affordability); droughts and pollution which limit the amount of water readily available (causing water scarcity); or exposure to natural disasters such as floods or droughts (which require improvements in resilience). Additionally, we also provide solutions to enhance communications and efficiency, improve safety and conserve resources to customers in the water and energy sectors. Delivering value in these areas creates significant opportunity for the Company. We estimate our total served market size to be approximately $60 billion.

The Global Water Industry Value Chain

The water industry value chain includes Equipment, Technology and Services companies, like Xylem, that address the unique challenges and demands of a diverse customer base. This customer base includes water and wastewater utilities that supply, treat and monitor clean water or transport, treat and analyze wastewater or storm water through an infrastructure network, and engineering, procurement and construction ("EPC") firms and third party contractors, that work with utilities to design and build water and wastewater infrastructure networks, as depicted below. Utilities and other customers require products, solutions, services, technology and application expertise from their Equipment, Technology and Services providers to address trends such as rising pollution, stricter regulations, increasing operational costs and the increased outsourcing of process knowledge. In addition to utilities, Equipment, Technology and Service companies also provide distinct technologies and application expertise to a wide array of entities, including farms, mines, power plants, industrial facilities (such as food and beverage and pharmaceutical manufacturers) and residential and commercial customers seeking to address similar trends.

Water Industry Supply Chain

Business Strategy

Our strategy is to help customers solve the world's greatest water challenges with innovative products, services and solutions to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental benefits. The following strategic pillars guide where and how we focus our efforts and resources to implement this strategy:

• Drive Customer Success.** We seek to partner with customers to meet their stakeholders’ needs through our broad portfolio of unmatched products, services and solutions. We are focused on several key areas, beginning with making it easier for customers to do business with Xylem and access the full range of our capabilities. As part of this, we implement a digital platform to discover, select, get price quotes, and purchase our offerings. Second, we seek to lead the way as digital technologies transform our sector by further integrating our digital solution portfolio and broadening our solution sales, digital literacy and marketing capabilities company-wide. Third, we seek to help customers get the most out of their systems by providing world-class services that ensure uptime, efficiency and resilience. We partner with them by providing powerful, integrated lifecycle services and solutions.

• Grow in the Emerging Markets. We continue to invest in localizing our capabilities in the emerging markets. We will continue building innovation, product management and engineering teams in these regions, expanding our market coverage in key growth markets such as China, India and Africa. We seek to address the base of the pyramid population by serving water and sanitation needs with new solutions and business models.

• Strengthen Innovation and Technology.** We seek to create new customer offerings that help them solve water challenges more powerfully than ever before, while also providing our company with rapid growth

opportunities. We will focus on building and enabling infrastructure for digital growth by making our hardware, networks and software applications interoperable and creating a common software experience. This will further strengthen our core product offerings, and deliver strategic, sustainable innovations that help us tap into new markets through advanced technology and new business models.

• Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement. We seek to continue embedding a continuous improvement mindset throughout the company, and will continue to improve our efficiency, simplify our business and manage costs to support continued growth. We are committed to eliminating business complexity by streamlining internal bureaucracy and expanding standard business platforms and processes to help people do their jobs. This will result in freeing up time to ensure that we focus on work that creates customer value. Other focus areas include removing unnecessary costs from our end-to-end value chain to free up resources for growth; and building resilience and sustainability into our supply chain to protect our ability to serve customers.

• Cultivate Leadership and Talent Development****.** We continue to foster an empowering, mission-driven, diverse and inclusive culture. We will continue to build leadership succession depth and breadth in keeping with our commitment to developing the next generation of leaders. We will also align our incentives, including share-based compensation, and organizational structure to our strategy, favoring approaches to drive 'one company' skills, behaviors and stakeholder value creation.

Our strategic plan firmly embeds sustainability at the heart of our competitive advantage and unique business model, and aligns each of our five core strategic pillars to the overarching goal of integrating sustainability into everything we do.

While our strategy will evolve in response to the changing world, our four values are the enduring principles that go to the heart of who we are and guide how we conduct ourselves each day: Respect, Responsibility, Integrity and Creativity.

Business Segments, Distribution and Competitive Landscape

We have three reportable business segments that are aligned around the critical market applications they provide: Water Infrastructure, Applied Water, and Measurement & Control Solutions. See Note 22, “Segment and Geographic Data,” in our consolidated financial statements for financial information about segments and geographic areas.

The table and descriptions below provide an overview of our business segments:

						Market Applications						2020 Revenue (in millions)						% Revenue						Major Products						Primary Brands
Water Infrastructure						Transport						$	1,679					81		%				• Water and wastewater pumps • Filtration, disinfection and biological treatment equipment • Mobile dewatering equipment						• Flygt • Godwin • Leopold • Sanitaire • Wedeco
			Treatment						400						19		%
												$	2,079					100		%
Applied Water						Building Services (a)						$	804					56		%				• Pumps • Valves • Heat exchangers • Controls • Dispensing equipment systems						• A-C Fire Pump • Bell & Gossett • Flojet • Goulds Water Technology • Jabsco • Lowara • Standard Xchange
			Industrial Water						630						44		%
												$	1,434					100		%
Measurement & Control Solutions						Water						$	689					51		%				• Smart meters • Networked communication devices • Data analytics • Test equipment • Controls • Sensor devices • Software & managed services • Critical infrastructure services						• BLU-X • Pure • Sensus • Smith Blair • WTW • YSI
			Energy						276						20		%
			Test						306						22		%
						Software as a Service						92						7		%
												$	1,363					100		%

(a)Building Services application revenue is composed of approximately 70% of Commercial end market sales and approximately 30% of Residential end market sales.

Water Infrastructure

Our Water Infrastructure segment primarily supports the process that collects water from a source, treats it and distributes it to users, and then treats and returns the wastewater responsibly to the environment through two closely linked applications: Transport and Treatment. The Transport application also includes sales and rental of specialty dewatering pumps and related equipment and services, which provide the safe removal or draining of groundwater and surface water from construction sites or other industrial sites and bypass pumping for the repair of aging utility infrastructure, as well as emergency water transport and removal during severe weather events.

The customer base consists of two primary end markets: utility and industrial. The utility market includes public, private and public-private entities that support water, wastewater and storm water networks. The industrial market includes customers who require similar water and wastewater infrastructure networks to support various industrial operations.

Water Infrastructure sells primarily through direct channels with remaining sales through indirect channels and service capabilities. Both utility and industrial facility customers increasingly require our teams’ global but locally

proficient expertise to use our equipment in their specific applications. Several trends are increasing demand for this application expertise: (i) the increase in both the type and amount of contaminants found in the water supply, (ii) increasing environmental regulations, (iii) the need to increase system efficiencies and resilience to optimize energy and other operational costs, (iv) the retirement of an aging water industry workforce that has not been systematically renewed at utilities and other end-user customers, and (v) the build-out of water infrastructure in the emerging markets. We estimate our served market size in this sector to be approximately $20 billion.

Given the highly fragmented nature of the water industry, the Water Infrastructure segment competes with a large number of businesses and no one business competes across all the markets Water Infrastructure serves. We differentiate ourselves in the market by focusing on product and service performance, quality and reliability, innovation, speed to market with new or disruptive technologies and business models, application expertise, brand reputation, energy efficiency, product security, product life-cycle cost, timeliness of delivery, proximity of service centers, effectiveness of our distribution channels, price and customers' experience in doing business with us. Increasingly digital solutions and analytics are important competitive differentiators. We are actively expanding our capabilities in these areas and integrating them together with our legacy technologies and service offerings as well as capabilities from other Xylem business units to present ever more compelling solutions to our customers. In the sale or rental of products and provision of services, we benefit from our large installed base, which requires maintenance, repair and replacement parts due to the critical application and nature of the products and the conditions under which they operate. Timeliness of delivery, quality and the proximity of service centers are important customer considerations when selecting a provider for after-market products and services as well as equipment rentals. In geographic regions where we are locally positioned to provide a quick response, customers have historically relied on us, rather than our competitors, for after-market products relating to our highly engineered and customized solutions. Our key competitors in the Water Infrastructure segment include KSB Inc., Sulzer Ltd., Evoqua Water Technologies, United Rentals, Trojan (Danaher Corporation) and Grundfos, among others.

Applied Water

Applied Water encompasses the uses of water in two primary applications: Building Services and Industrial Water. These applications serve a diverse set of customers in the commercial, residential and industrial end markets. Residential consumers represent the end users in the residential market, while owners and managers of properties such as apartment buildings, retail stores, institutional buildings, restaurants, schools, hospitals and hotels are examples of end users in the commercial market. The industrial market includes OEMs, exploration and production firms, and developers and managers of industrial facilities, such as electrical power generators, chemical manufacturers, machine shops, clothing manufacturers, marine, food and beverage companies and car washes.

In the Applied Water segment, end markets vary widely and, as a result, specialized distribution partners are often preferred. As such, the Applied Water segment provides the majority of its sales through strong indirect channels with the remaining sales going through our global direct sales channels. We have long-standing relationships with many of the leading independent distributors in the markets we serve and we provide incentives to distributors, such as specialized loyalty and training programs.

We estimate our served market size in this sector to be approximately $20 billion. Population growth, urbanization and regulatory requirements are macro growth drivers of these markets, driving the need for housing, food, community services and retail goods within growing city centers.

Competition in the Applied Water segment focuses on brand reputation, application expertise, product delivery, performance and energy efficiency, quality and reliability, and price. We compete by offering a wide variety of innovative and high-quality products, coupled with world-class application expertise. We believe our distribution through well-established channels and our reputation for quality significantly enhance our market position. Our ability to deliver innovative product offerings has enabled us to compete effectively, to cultivate and maintain customer relationships and to serve and expand into many niche and new markets. Our key competitors in the Applied Water segment include Grundfos, Wilo SE, Pentair plc and Franklin Electric Co., Inc.

Measurement & Control Solutions

Measurement & Control Solutions develops advanced technology solutions that enable intelligent use and conservation of critical water and energy resources. The segment delivers communications, smart metering, measurement and control technologies and critical infrastructure technologies that allow customers to more effectively use their distribution networks for the delivery, monitoring and control of critical resources such as water, electricity and natural gas. We also provide analytical instrumentation used to measure and analyze water quality, flow and level in clean water, wastewater, surface water and coastal environments. Additionally, we offer

software and services including cloud-based analytics, remote monitoring and data management, leak detection, condition assessment, asset management and pressure monitoring solutions.

At the heart of our leading technologies are automation, data management and decision support. Communications networks enable customers to automate and optimize meter reading, bill customers, monitor flow rates and detect and enable rapid response to changing and unsafe conditions. In short, they provide insight into operations and enable our customers to manage the entire scope of their operations remotely through their networks. At the center of our offering is the FlexNet communication network, which provides a common communications platform and infrastructure for essential metering services. This two-way communication technology remotely connects a wide variety of smart points in a given network with protocols, frequently on Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") licensed spectrum in the U.S., to enable reliable, resilient and secure transmissions. These technologies allow our customers to remotely and continuously monitor their water, energy distribution infrastructure, prioritize and manage maintenance, and use data to optimize many aspects of their networks. Our Advanced Infrastructure Analytics platform complements these offerings with intelligent solutions that help utility decision-makers manage and maintain their networks more effectively in real time.

The majority of our sales in the U.S. are conducted through strong, long-standing relationships with leading distributors and dedicated channel partners for the water and energy markets. Internationally, direct sales are often made in markets without established distribution channels; however, some distribution channels are used in more developed markets. A more direct sales approach, with key account management, is employed for large utilities and government programs.

We estimate our served market size in this sector to be approximately $20 billion. Macro growth drivers include increasing regulation, aging infrastructure and worldwide movement towards smart grid implementation. Water scarcity and conservation, as well as the need to prevent revenue loss (via inaccurate meter readings, leaks or theft) are among the drivers of smart meter and leak detection technologies.

Our Sensus-branded meters are well positioned in the smart metering sector, the fastest growing sector of the global meter industry. We set ourselves apart in the industry by focusing on our communication network, innovation, new product development and service offerings that deliver tangible savings of non-revenue water through improved meter accuracy, reduced theft and identification of leaks. Our Pure Technologies equipment and services are also well positioned in the leak detection sector, which is attracting considerable attention as aging infrastructure and increased regulatory scrutiny exert pressure on operating budgets. Our key competitors in the Measurement & Control Solutions segment include Itron, Badger Meter, Landis+Gyr, Neptune (Roper), Elster (Honeywell), Echologics (Mueller Water Products), Hach (Danaher Corporation) and Teledyne.

Geographic Profile

The table below illustrates the annual revenue and percentage of revenue by geographic area for each of the three years ended December 31.

			Revenue
(in millions)			2020												2019												2018
			$ Amount						% of Total						$ Amount						% of Total						$ Amount						% of Total
United States			$	2,297					47		%				$	2,554					49		%				$	2,424					47		%
Europe			1,407						29		%				1,380						26		%				1,449						28		%
Asia Pacific			618						13		%				659						13		%				660						13		%
Other			554						11		%				656						12		%				674						12		%
Total			$	4,876											$	5,249											$	5,207

In addition to the traditional markets of the U.S. and western Europe, opportunities in emerging markets within Asia Pacific, eastern Europe, Latin America and other countries are growing. Revenue derived from emerging markets comprised approximately 19% of total revenue in 2020 and 20% of total revenue in both 2019 and 2018.

Supply and Seasonality

We have a global manufacturing and assembly footprint, with production facilities in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Our inventory management and distribution practices seek to minimize inventory holding periods by striving to take delivery of the inventory and manufacturing as close as possible to the sale or distribution of products to our customers. All of our businesses require various parts and raw materials, the availability and prices of which may fluctuate. Parts and raw materials commonly used in our products include motors, fabricated parts, castings, bearings, seals, batteries, printed circuit boards ("PCBs") and electronic

components, as well as commodities, including steel, brass, nickel, copper, aluminum and plastics. While we may recover some cost increases through operational improvements, we are still exposed to pricing risk, including due to duty and tariff assessments by the U.S. or other governments on foreign imports. We attempt to control costs through fixed-priced contracts with suppliers and various other programs, such as our global procurement initiative.

Our business relies on third-party suppliers, contract manufacturing and commodity markets to secure raw materials, parts and components used in our products. We typically acquire materials and components through a combination of blanket and scheduled purchase orders to support our materials requirements. For many of our products we have existing alternate sources of supply, or such sources may be readily available.

We may experience price volatility or supply constraints for materials that are not available from multiple sources. From time to time, we acquire certain inventory in anticipation of supply constraints or enter into longer-term pricing commitments with suppliers to improve the priority, price and availability of supply. There have been no raw material shortages in the past several years that have had a significant adverse impact on our business as a whole.

Our business segments experience a modest level of seasonality in their operations. This seasonality is dependent on factors such as customers' capital spending as well as the effects of climate change and weather conditions, including heavy flooding, prolonged droughts and fluctuations in temperatures or weather patterns, all of which can positively or negatively impact portions of our business.

Customers

Our business is not dependent on any single customer or a few customers, the loss of which would have a material adverse effect on our Company. No individual customer accounted for more than 10% of our consolidated revenues in 2020, 2019 or 2018.

Backlog

Backlog includes orders on hand as well as contractual customer agreements at the end of the period. Delivery schedules vary from customer to customer based on their requirements. Annual or multi-year contracts are subject to rescheduling and cancellation by customers due to the long-term nature of the contracts. As such, beginning total backlog, plus orders, minus revenues, will not equal ending total backlog due to contract adjustments, foreign currency fluctuations and other factors. Typically, large projects require longer lead production cycles and deployment schedules and delays can occur from time to time. Total backlog was $2,124 million at December 31, 2020 and $1,801 million at December 31, 2019. We anticipate that approximately 55% of the backlog at December 31, 2020 will be recognized as revenue during 2021.

Research and Development

Research and development (“R&D”) is a key foundation of our growth strategy and we focus on the design and development of products and application know-how that anticipate customer needs and emerging trends. Our engineers are involved in new product development as well as improvement of existing products to increase customer value. Our businesses invest substantial resources into R&D. We anticipate we will continue to develop and invest in our R&D capabilities to promote a steady flow of innovative, high-quality and reliable products and integrated solutions to further strengthen our position in the markets we serve. In addition to investments made in software development, which were capitalized, we incurred $187 million, $191 million, and $189 million as a result of R&D investment spending in 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

We have R&D and product development capabilities around the world. R&D activities are initially conducted in our technology centers, located in conjunction with some of our major manufacturing facilities to enable an efficient and robust development process. We have several global technical centers and local development teams around the world where we are supporting global needs and accelerating the customization of our products and solutions to address local needs. In some cases, our R&D activities are conducted at our piloting and testing facilities and at strategic customer sites. These piloting and testing facilities enable us to serve our strategic markets globally. As part of expanding our bandwidth and to increase our access to technology, we have built innovation eco-system partnerships with academic institutions, start-up accelerators and venture capital organizations.

Capitalized Software

We offer software as a product or service directly to external customers, which is included within "Other intangible assets, net" on our Consolidated Balance Sheets. As of December 31, 2020 and 2019 we had net capitalized software used in sales and services to external customers of $182 million and $165 million, respectively.

Intellectual Property

We generally seek patent protection for those inventions and improvements that we believe will improve our competitive position and are not suitable to be kept as a trade secret. We believe that our patents and applications are important for maintaining the competitive differentiation of our products and improving our return on R&D investments. While we own, control or license a significant number of patents, trade secrets, proprietary information, trademarks, trade names, copyrights and other intellectual property rights which, in the aggregate, are of material importance to our business, management believes that our business, as a whole, as well as each of our core business segments, is not materially dependent on any one intellectual property right or related group of such rights.

Patents, patent applications and license agreements expire or terminate over time by operation of law, in accordance with their terms or otherwise. As the portfolio of our patents, patent applications and license agreements has evolved over time, we do not expect the expiration of any specific patent to have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.

Governmental Regulations

Environmental Regulations

Our global operations are subject to various laws and regulations governing the environment and climate change, such as those promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and similar state and foreign environmental agencies, including the discharge of pollutants and the management and disposal of hazardous substances. While environmental and climate change laws and regulations are subject to change, such changes can be difficult to predict reliably and the timing of potential changes is uncertain. Management does not believe, based on current circumstances, that compliance costs pursuant to such regulations will have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations. However, the effect of future legislative or regulatory changes could be material to our financial condition or results of operations.

We continue to be dedicated to environmental and sustainability programs to minimize the use of natural resources, reduce the utilization and generation of hazardous materials from our processes and remediate identified environmental concerns. We are currently engaged in site investigations and remediation activities to address environmental cleanup from past operations at a number of current and former manufacturing facilities. We do not anticipate these liabilities will have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position or results of operations. At December 31, 2020, we had estimated and accrued $3 million related to environmental matters.

Other Regulations

As a company with global operations, we are subject to complex U.S. federal, state and local and foreign laws and regulations in the countries where we conduct business, including with respect to trade, such as tariffs, imports and exports; anti-bribery and corruption; antitrust and competition; data security and privacy, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”); use of regulated radio spectrum, including that of the U.S. FCC; lobbying activity; health and safety; and the environment, among other matters. We have policies and procedures in place to promote compliance with these laws and regulations. Additional information about the impact of government regulations on Xylem’s business is included in Item 1A. “Risk Factors” under the headings Risks Related to Our Business and Operations and Risks Related to Legal, Regulatory and Tax.

Sustainability

At Xylem, sustainability is at the center of who we are and what we do. As a leading global water technology company, we address some of the world’s most urgent sustainability challenges - responsible stewardship of our shared water resources and resiliency of communities to climate change. Technology is playing an increasingly important role in helping the world solve water issues. We have a long history of innovation and we are focusing on the powerful capabilities of smart technology, integrated management and data analytics.

We believe our financial performance and commitment to sustainability go hand in hand. Xylem approaches business sustainability as a way to generate economic value while also creating value for society, thus meeting the needs of both. Accordingly, in 2019, we evolved our approach to leverage sustainability in our decision-making toward long-term value for our shareholders, customers, employees and communities in which we operate and announced an ambitious new slate of 2025 sustainability goals. These new goals can be found in our 2019 Sustainability Report, which is aligned to the Global Reporting Initiative and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board frameworks.

In setting our 2025 Sustainability goals, we also aligned them with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ("UNSDGs"), not only to substantiate our contribution to achieving global objectives, but also to be

transparent in our communication to stakeholders by providing details on our responsibility to build a sustainable future. While Xylem embraces all 17 of the UNSDGs, we have a special focus on SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation.

In 2020, Xylem completed a $1 billion Green Bond offering in senior unsecured notes, consisting of $500 million of 1.950% senior notes due in January 2028 and $500 million of 2.250% senior notes due in January 2031. The proceeds of this offering are funding green projects that help improve water accessibility, water affordability, and water systems resilience.

Human Capital

Our employees around the globe are united in a shared purpose – to solve water – and, as such, are key to the Company’s success and strategy.

As of December 31, 2020, Xylem employed approximately 16,700 employees worldwide, of which approximately 1,100 were temporary or fixed-term employees or interns. We have approximately 5,500 employees in the U.S., of which approximately 17% are represented by labor unions. In certain foreign countries, our employees are represented by work councils. We believe that our facilities are in favorable labor markets with ready access to adequate numbers of workers and believe our relations with our employees are good.

The safety and health of our employees is our highest priority. We have a strong Environmental, Health and Safety program that focuses on governance, risk reduction and education to provide our employees with safe and healthy workplaces. Importantly, during 2020 and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we took additional measures to protect the health, safety and well-being of our employees, including a support pay program for employees impacted by the pandemic, an essential services support pay program for employees whose roles were classified as an “essential service” requiring work on-site at a Xylem facility or in the field supporting customers, and the transition of office-based employees to remote work-from-home status where possible, which enabled us to minimize disruptions to our operations and continue to support our customers. In addition, our leadership team held listening sessions with employees who were also caregivers to understand their unique challenges and evolve our support accordingly.

We foster a culture that permits all employees to thrive. This means cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace that brings together people from different perspectives, talents and experiences. We conduct periodic employee engagement surveys to understand our employees’ perspectives, identify areas for additional focus and establish action plans. We provide periodic training on diversity and inclusion globally, including for our senior leaders. We offer Employee Network Groups, which are voluntary, employee-led groups formed by people with a common affinity, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, military status or other attributes. Each Employee Network Group is sponsored and supported by one or more senior leaders and all groups are open to all employees regardless of any diversity attributes with which they may identify. In addition, our CEO and leadership team hold regular global town hall meetings, as well as smaller regional or local town halls, to share and hear from our employees across all areas of the Company and geographies.

We believe that our success and long-term growth depend, in part, on our continued ability to attract and retain diverse and highly-skilled employees, including senior management and employees with skills in our strategic areas and core competencies, such as engineering, innovation, digital technologies, sales excellence and product and project management. We endeavor to provide our employees with competitive compensation and benefits, including paid parental leave in the U.S. We have a broad range of talent development programs to facilitate the continued professional growth and leadership development of our succession plans. These programs span across all levels, businesses and functions of the organization, including entry-level talent recruitment programs, development programs for emerging leaders, manager training and executive development. We also prioritize employee engagement, including through regular, year round discussions focused on performance and development, through volunteerism, and through activities involving Watermark, our corporate social responsibility program.

Available Information

We are required to file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those reports are available free of charge on our website www.xylem.com as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. The information on our website is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part hereof or incorporated into this or any of our other filings with the SEC.

In addition, the public may read or copy any materials filed with the SEC, free of charge, at www.sec.gov.