Item 1. BUSINESS

Business Overview

Xylem is a leading global water technology company with 2023 revenues of $7.4 billion and approximately 23,000 employees worldwide. We design, manufacture and service highly engineered products and solutions across a wide variety of critical applications primarily in the water sector. Our broad portfolio of products, services and solutions addresses customer needs of scarcity, resilience, quality, and affordability across the water cycle, from the delivery, treatment, 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, analytic instrumentation and measurement, smart metering, infrastructure assessment services, digital software solutions for utilities, industrial processes, outsourced water services, filtration and separation, applied water systems for commercial and residential business services, disinfection, wastewater treatment, and anodes. 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 across the water cycle that provides for steady recurring and replacement revenue

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

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

• 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

Our Industry

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

Our planet faces serious water challenges. Less than 1% of the total water available on earth is fresh water, and these supplies are threatened by 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. It is expected that there will be a 40% gap between global water supply and demand by 2030. 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 of the global water industry, excluding operational expenditures related to labor, energy, and chemicals, to be approximately $700 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," "water quality," 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. "Water quality" refers to the suitability of water for a particular use based on its physical, chemical and biological characteristics. "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 four of these challenges, ranging from inefficient and aging water distribution networks and energy-intensive or unreliable water and wastewater management systems (requiring 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 (requiring improvements in resilience). Additionally, we also provide solutions to enhance communications and efficiency,

improve safety and conserve resources to customers in the water sector. Delivering value in these areas creates significant opportunity for the Company.

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 and services 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 overarching 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 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 are implementing 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 enable increased 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 regionalizing 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, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa. We seek to address the base of the pyramid population by providing water and sanitation needs with new and fit-for-market product portfolios, 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, profitable, growth opportunities. We are focused 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 and insightful data analytics that help us tap into new markets through advanced technology and new business models.

• Build a High Impact Culture. We seek to continue embedding a continuous improvement mindset throughout the Company, to further 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, equitable 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 and performance-based compensation, and organizational structure to our strategy, favoring approaches to drive 'one company' skills, mindset and 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 four reportable business segments that are aligned around the critical market applications they provide: Water Infrastructure, Applied Water, Measurement and Control Solutions and Integrated Solutions and Services. See Note 21, “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						2023 Revenue (in millions)						% Revenue						Major Products						Primary Brands
Water Infrastructure						Transport						$	2,172					73		%				• Water and wastewater pumps • Filtration, disinfection and biological treatment equipment • Mobile dewatering equipment and rental services						•ADI •Flygt •Godwin •Ionpure •Leopold •Magneto •Neptune Benson •Sanitaire •Wallace & Tiernan •Wedeco •Xylem Vue
			Treatment						795						27		%
												$	2,967					100		%
Applied Water						Building Solutions						$	1,025					55		%				• Pumps • Valves • Heat exchangers • Controls • Dispensing equipment systems						• A-C Fire Pump • Bell & Gossett • Flojet • Goulds Water Technology • Jabsco • Lowara • Standard Xchange • Xylem Vue
			Industrial Water						828						45		%
												$	1,853					100		%
Measurement and Control Solutions						Water						$	1,354					78		%				• Smart meters • Networked communication devices • Data analytics • Test equipment • Controls • Sensor devices • Software & managed services • Critical infrastructure services						• Pure Technologies • Sensus • Smith Blair • WTW • YSI • Xylem Vue
			Energy						375						22		%
									$	1,729					100		%
Integrated Solutions and Services												$	815					100		%				•Preventative maintenance services •Rapid response mobile services •Digitally enabled/outsourced solutions •Process and wastewater systems •Environmental remediation •Odor and corrosion control •Filtration •Reverse osmosis •Ion exchange •Continuous deionization						•AquaPro •WaterOne •Ion Pure

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, scalable products, and related equipment, technology, 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 that require similar water and wastewater infrastructure applications 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 resilience and efficiencies 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.

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., Grundfos, United Rentals, Trojan (Veralto Corporation), Veolia, De Nora, and ProMinent.

Applied Water

Applied Water encompasses the uses of water to 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/universities, hospitals and hotels are examples of end users in the commercial market. The industrial market includes original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs"), exploration and production firms, agricultural customers, 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.

Population growth and urbanization, climate and regulation on energy efficiency, and digitalization enabling self-service and preventive maintenance 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 and Control Solutions

Measurement and 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 capabilities 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, outdoor water 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 and to optimize their operational costs. 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 and energy distribution infrastructure, prioritize and manage maintenance, and use data to optimize many aspects of their networks. Our digital software solutions complement these offerings with intelligent applications 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 direct sales approach, with key account management, is employed for large utilities and government programs.

Macro growth drivers include increasing regulation, aging infrastructure and worldwide movement towards smart grid implementation and automated meter infrastructure (“AMI"). 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 from efficiency of operating costs in meter reading and billing, as well as reduction of non-revenue water through improved meter accuracy, reduced theft and identification of leaks. Our YSI and WTW-branded instruments have a strong position in the analytical instrumentation market and provide critical readings of various water quality, level and flow parameters for customers. We provide a differentiated offering in the reliability and accuracy of our products often in rugged, remote, and hazardous locations. 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 and Control Solutions segment include Itron, Badger Meter, Landis+Gyr, Neptune (Roper), Kamstrup, Echologics (Mueller Water Products), Hach (Veralto Corporation) and Teledyne.

Integrated Solutions and Services

Our Integrated Solutions and Services segment provides application-specific solutions and full lifecycle services to treat process water, utility water, and wastewater for customers in a variety of end markets. Integrated Solutions and Services also provides odor and corrosion control services and drinking water treatment systems for municipalities. Integrated Solutions and Services offers customers outsourced water service contracts, capital

systems and related recurring aftermarket services, parts and consumables, and emergency services. Our outsourced water service contracts include short-term service deionization contracts, averaging one to two years in duration, longer-term build-own-operate contracts, averaging eight to ten years in duration, and event driven mobile fleet deployments, including a growing portfolio of digitally connected technologies encompassed in our Water One® service platform. Key capital and related aftermarket service and product offerings include filtration, reverse osmosis, ion exchange and continuous deionization.

Integrated Solutions and Services supports service and aftermarket sales through what we believe to be the largest integrated industrial service branch network in North America, which is comprised of approximately 1,060 highly qualified professionals in field service and application engineering roles and our extensive fleet of mobile reverse osmosis and deionization water treatment systems. This is complemented by our digitally connected Water One® service platform, which uniquely combines our water expertise, proactive service, proven technology, and data intelligence to continually improve customers’ water operation management. Our remote monitoring capabilities enable us to optimize our routine service calls through predictive analytics and provide customers a more predictable, cost-efficient water solution.

Integrated Solutions and Services partners with customers through our direct sales and service team, which is organized geographically and by end market and is complemented by an inside sales force, field sales engineers, and a growing e-commerce platform.

Our key competitors in the Integrated Solutions and Services segment include Veolia, Ecolab, MPW Industrial Services, and Ovivo.

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)			2023												2022												2021
			$ Amount						% of Total						$ Amount						% of Total						$ Amount						% of Total
United States			$	3,956					54		%				$	2,573					47		%				$	2,280					44		%
Western Europe			1,655						22		%				1,411						26		%				1,414						27		%
Emerging Markets (a)			1,182						16		%				1,074						19		%				1,066						21		%
Other			571						8		%				464						8		%				435						8		%
Total			$	7,364											$	5,522											$	5,195

(a)Emerging Markets includes results from the following regions: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific (excluding Japan, Australia and New Zealand, which are presented in "Other")

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. 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, magnets, bearings, seals, batteries, printed circuit boards ("PCBs") and electronic components, including semiconductors, 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 have experienced price volatility or supply constraints when materials have not been 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.

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 5% of our consolidated revenues in 2023, 2022 or 2021.

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 occur from time to time. Total backlog was $5,088 million at December 31, 2023 and $3,605 million at December 31, 2022. We anticipate that approximately 55% of the backlog at December 31, 2023 will be recognized as revenue during 2024.

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, services, solutions and application know-how that address anticipated customer needs and emerging trends. Our engineers are involved in new product, service, and solution development as well as improvement of existing products, services and solutions 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 $232 million, $206 million, and $204 million as a result of R&D investment spending in 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

We have R&D and 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, services, 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 as well as other technology firms, 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, 2023 and 2022 we had net capitalized software used in sales and services to external customers of $209 million and $213 million, respectively.

Intellectual Property

We generally seek patent protection for inventions that we believe will improve our competitive position and are not suitable to be kept as a trade secret. 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 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 related to 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, 2023, we had estimated and accrued $4 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, regulations, and permits in the countries where we conduct business, including related 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”) and the China Personal Information Protection Law ('PIPL"); use of regulated radio spectrum, including that of the U.S. FCC; lobbying activity; health and safety; the environment; air emissions; potable and non-potable water; wastewater discharge; and the generation, handling, storage, use, transport, treatment and disposal of non-hazardous and hazardous materials and wastes, among other matters. We have policies and procedures in place to promote compliance with these laws, regulations, and permits. 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, Risks Related to Financial and Tax, and Risks Related to Legal and Regulatory.

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 creation for our shareholders, customers, employees and communities in which we operate and we announced an ambitious slate of 2025 Sustainability goals. The progress towards these goals can be found in our 2022 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.

Additionally, in 2021, Xylem announced our commitment to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions before 2050 across our value chain, further aligning our long-term commitment to sustainability with sector-wide moves towards reduced carbon footprint. In 2022, we submitted our 2030 GHG reduction targets to the Science Based Target Initiative for validation. As of December 31, 2023, we are working to determine the impact of the Evoqua Water Technologies Corp. ("Evoqua") acquisition on these targets.

In 2023, we entered into a five-year revolving credit facility (the "2023 Credit Facility") with Citibank, N.A., as Administrative Agent, and a syndicate of lenders. The 2023 Credit Facility includes a pricing grid that determines the applicable margin based on Xylem's credit rating, with a further adjustment based on Xylem's achievement of certain sustainability related key performance indicators (the "KPIs"). Facility fees under the 2023 Credit Facility are also adjusted based on Xylem's credit rating and the KPIs. In 2022, we announced investments in CNote’s Impact Cash™ platform, a mechanism through which we invest and deposit cash at scale in community finance institutions that strengthen and transform underserved communities. In 2021, in partnership with Goldman Sachs, we continued our work towards further integrating our business and finance strategies with sustainability by creating a cash account tied to performance of select 2025 Sustainability goals. 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 were allocated to green projects that help improve water accessibility, water affordability, and water systems resilience. Additionally, during the first quarter of 2021, we issued a special grant to certain employees of less than 0.1 million ESG performance share units.

Human Capital

Our colleagues around the globe are united in a shared purpose – to solve water – and, as such, are key to the Company’s success and execution of our strategy. We seek to foster a high-impact culture - that is, one in which our colleagues are inspired to innovate, empowered to lead, and accountable to deliver – creating an environment that is mission-driven, people-centered, diverse, equitable and inclusive. We believe that our overall success and long-term growth depend, in part, on our continued ability to attract and retain diverse and highly skilled colleagues, including senior leaders and individuals with skills in our strategic competencies, such as engineering, innovation, digital technologies, sales excellence, sustainability and product and project management, as well as production, field service and technical services talent. The market for individuals with these competencies is increasingly competitive, but we believe our culture is a differentiator and therefore important to our ability to attract and retain employees.

As of December 31, 2023, Xylem employed approximately 23,000 employees worldwide. We have approximately 9,300 employees in the U.S., 7,800 in Western Europe, and 4,700 in the Emerging Markets, with the remaining 1,000 in other geographies in which we operate. Approximately 11% of our U.S. colleagues are represented by labor unions. In certain foreign countries, our colleagues are represented by work councils. We believe that our relations with our employees are good, including with our employees that are represented by labor unions and/or works councils.

We conduct regular employee engagement surveys and listening sessions to understand our employees’ perspectives, identify areas for additional focus and establish action plans. In 2023, we changed our approach in order to gather more frequent and specific feedback from our wired colleagues through shorter, pulse surveys that provide insights into employee engagement, customer focus, company culture and organizational effectiveness. In addition, we periodically conduct ad hoc surveys to gain insights into other relevant topics, including well-being, safety and professional development.

Our Vision and Values

Our vision and values provide the foundation for how we want to grow as a company, as well as the inspiration for how we want to behave as industry leaders and ethical corporate citizens. Our vision is to create a world in which water issues are no longer a constraint to health, prosperity, and sustainable development. We devote our technology, time and talent to advance the smarter use of water and our colleagues are guided by our core values:

• Respect for each other, for diversity of people and opinions, for the environment;

• Responsibility for our words and actions, for customer satisfaction, for giving back to our communities;

• Integrity for acting ethically, for doing what we say we’ll do, for having the courage to communicate with candor; and

• Creativity for thinking beyond boundaries, for anticipating tomorrow’s challenges, for unlocking growth potential.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

We are committed to a workplace that creates a sense of belonging for everyone: where all our colleagues feel involved, respected, valued, heard, connected, able to bring their authentic selves to the workplace, and empowered to do their best work. We believe that Xylem is strongest when we embrace the power of diversity, equity and inclusion to drive innovation, make us more competitive, positively impact employee and customer

satisfaction and the Company’s performance, better serve the communities in which we operate, create value for our shareholders and other stakeholders, and advance social equity.

Our commitment to fostering a global, diverse, equitable and inclusive environment starts with our Board of Directors and senior leadership team members, who represent a broad spectrum of backgrounds, identities and perspectives. We believe that the diversity of our Board of Directors and senior leadership enhances our ability to evolve and execute our business strategy and to attract and retain diverse and highly-qualified talent, and also fuels our commitment to foster an environment of inclusion and provide our colleagues with equitable access to opportunities.

As of December 31, 2023, 25% of our colleagues globally identify as female; in the U.S., 26% of our colleagues identify as U.S. minorities. These and other diversity and inclusion metrics are included in our regular business reviews to provide transparency and drive accountability by highlighting progress on goals and outlining steps to achieve them, grounded in merit-based retention, promotion and recruitment. In addition, we publicly disclose various workforce metrics regarding gender, age and racial and ethnic diversity, including our U.S. EEO-1 report. Key strategies for becoming a more diverse organization—and incorporating broader experiences, skill sets, and perspectives into our work— include expanding sourcing channels for diverse talent through external diversity partnerships and affiliations, and prioritizing diverse candidate slates when filling professional roles to increase the pool of qualified candidates considered.

We offer Employee Network Groups, which are voluntary, employee-led groups formed by people with a common affinity, such as gender, race, sexual orientation and gender identity, 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. Collectively, approximately 4,400 colleagues participate as members of our network groups.

Health and Safety

Protecting the safety, health and well-being of our colleagues is one of our highest priorities. We have a strong Environmental, Health and Safety program that focuses on governance, risk reduction, training and education, and leadership accountability to provide our colleagues with safe and healthy workplaces.

Based on historical employee engagement survey feedback, we have augmented our holistic well-being strategies, including the expansion of our Employee Assistance Program support across the globe and mental health awareness training to our people leaders.

Compensation and Benefits

Xylem strives to provide our colleagues with competitive compensation and benefits and takes a total rewards approach that integrates programs for compensation, benefits, recognition and work-life balance. In 2022, for our U.S. colleagues, we enhanced our paid parental leave and short-term disability coverage, provided for flexible time off for exempt colleagues, and expanded our health and welfare benefits, including with respect to reproductive care. While individual program components may differ by country, role or level, our culture and commitment to results and equity remain constant. We are currently conducting a pay equity assessment based on gender and U.S. minority classifications and will use the results of this assessment to continue to support our commitment to equitable pay by role.

We seek to align our human capital and sustainability strategies to support our high-impact culture and further our shared value approach, which are both designed to generate long-term economic and social value for our investors and other stakeholders. Accordingly, in 2021, the Company expanded its sustainability-linked compensation for all of our senior leaders, as well as a broader group of executives, through a special, one-time grant of performance share units with goals that are based on 5 of our strategically transformative 2025 Sustainability goals. We continue to expand our long-term incentive program to reach deeper in the organization to recognize key talent and top performers and attract and retain digital talent.

We have heard from many of our office-based colleagues that they greatly value the increased flexibility and autonomy that come with remote working. We believe that an appropriately tailored approach that balances in the office, fully remote and hybrid arrangements increases our ability to retain and attract the best, most diverse talent, while reducing our carbon footprint associated with unnecessary commuting and business travel. We are continuing to explore ways to help our colleagues thrive in a variety of work settings and have formalized guidelines that support remote and hybrid work. To better support our colleagues in a more flexible workplace, we also provide high-touch global onboarding and leverage collaboration technologies.

Career Development

We are committed to enhancing colleagues’ capabilities needed for the Company to win in the marketplace. We also are focused on internal talent mobility across functions, geographies and businesses. Through our continuous improvement program, we nurture and grow a continuous improvement mindset throughout all areas of the Company.

We have a broad range of talent development programs and experiences to facilitate the continued professional growth and leadership development of our colleagues and to support our succession plans. These programs span across all levels, businesses and functions, including entry-level talent recruitment programs, development programs for emerging leaders, people leader training and executive leadership development. We also provide on-demand/self-paced learning through our learning management systems.

We prioritize employee engagement through regular, year-round discussions focused on performance feedback and development, opportunities to work on special projects, and volunteer activities involving Watermark, our corporate responsibility program, as well as Xylem Ignite, our youth engagement program. In 2023, approximately 89% of our colleagues participated in employee-led volunteerism, including through Watermark, enhancing the Company’s commitment to employee development, retention, recruiting and collaboration in the communities where we live and work. Our Employee Network Groups foster inclusion and support the development of our colleagues by offering formal and informal leadership opportunities and creating visibility for colleagues.

Labor Relations

Xylem recognizes the work of labor organizations, works councils and trade unions to better the lives of working people. Accordingly, Xylem respects the legal rights of its employees to join or to refrain from joining such organizations. An employee’s decision to join or not join a labor organization will in no way result in any discrimination against that employee. Xylem informs managers at all levels of the importance of respecting the rights of colleagues to organize or be represented. We work to establish favorable employment conditions that promote positive relationships between our colleagues and their managers, facilitate communication among our colleagues and support their development.

Evoqua Acquisition

Xylem recognizes that the retention and integration of key talent is critical to the success of our acquisition of Evoqua. Accordingly, in connection with this acquisition, we provided cash and stock incentives to help retain and motivate key colleagues. We held change management sessions for people leaders whose teams were most affected by the acquisition and communicated extensively with our colleagues to help with integration, including visits by members of our senior leadership team to key sites for town halls and individual discussions with our colleagues as well as other targeted outreach to key talent.

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.