Sustainability

Our Company

Keeping Generations of People and Water Safe

For more than 150 years, and as our mission, Watts has been committed to improving the comfort, safety and quality of life for people around the world through our expertise in water technologies.

With over 40 global locations, we are dedicated to sustainability efforts including: energy efficiencies at all of our offices and manufacturing facilities; innovations with smart and connected technologies to bring value to our customers; and systems and solutions that protect our natural resources.

Recognition & Initiatives

7th Consecutive Year: Newsweek - America’s Most Responsible Companies

4th Consecutive Year: USA Today - America’s Climate Leaders

3rd Consecutive Year: Newsweek - America’s Greenest Companies

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Our Commitment to Sustainability

“Ten years of annual sustainability reporting at Watts has been a journey defined by consistency and growth. Each report has built on the one before it, and this 10th annual report provides the most mature reflection of our work to date. The results of our collective efforts can be seen not only in the data we report, but in the depth and discipline we bring to managing our performance and sharing our progress.”

Kenneth R. Lepage
General Counsel and Chief Sustainability Officer

Our Handprint

Water is a precious and scarce resource that sustains people, communities, and economies throughout the world. While vital to good health and well-being, water can also threaten people’s health and safety when not managed properly. At Watts, we believe our products and solutions have an essential role to play in protecting shared water resources and the people who use and rely on them.

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Our Footprint

We are committed to minimizing the impact of our global operations and supply chain on the environment, protecting the communities where we operate, and delivering innovative products and services that support our customers in doing the same.

In 2024, we recommitted to our intensity goals and adopted our first ever absolute carbon reduction goal of 10,000 metric tons by 2034.

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Product Transparency

As part of global efforts to limit the effects of climate change and pursue sustainable development, interest in the environmental impact of Watts products continues to grow. Our teams are responding to rapidly increasing requests for product-level environmental impact data, particularly in Europe, as our customers ensure compliance with regulations and meet broad demands for sustainability.

Product Transparency at Watts

2025 Sustainability Report

“With all our efforts, we remain focused on reinforcing our role as a global industry leader—advancing innovative technologies and solving our customers’ most complex challenges. As we continue our transformation to a Smart & Connected organization, Watts is poised to respond to the mega trends that will shape our world in the years ahead.”

Robert J. Pagano Jr.
CEO, President, and Chairperson of the Board

ESG Strategy

Footprint to Handprint

Surpassed annual targets across each of our intensity metrics, achieving a 3.6% reduction in water intensity, a 13% reduction in market-based carbon emissions intensity, and a 12% reduction in hazardous waste intensity

Committed to a new decarbonization goal: 30% absolute reduction equivalent to 10,000 MT of CO2 by 2034; achieved 1300 metric ton reduction in primary emissions against a 2023 baseline in 2025

Better quantifying our products’ handprint benefits and future design through life-cycle assessment (LCA) modeling and pursuing environmental product declarations (EPDs) to drive greater transparency for our customers

Watts Sites to Communities

Increasing accountability of our suppliers and their adherence to ESG principles

Volunteering more than 10,000 hours to organizations within our communities and beyond through our Watts Cares program

Performing quality audits of more than 520 suppliers globally through our Supplier Quality Audit Program

Business Strategy Influenced By Risks & Opportunities

Increasing employee engagement and employee resource groups (ERGs) at our sites

Analyzing production, logistics, and distribution to maximize our customer reach

Increasing sales from smart and connected enabled products and incorporated sustainability metrics into new product development process

Sustainability Integrated At Every Level

Making our products and operations more resilient to pollution, extreme climate events, and the increasing scarcity of water.

Enhancing transparency, commitments, and reporting requirements, including United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), Water Stewardship Verified (WAVE), CEO Water Mandate, and third-party environmental data validation

Sustainable Organizations & Partnerships

Company Profile

Learn more about who we are, what we do, and what we believe

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Sustainability Social Stewardship and Metrics

Employees

Our employees are our greatest assets, forming the bedrock of our company's success.

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Governance

We remain highly committed to ethical business practices worldwide

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Social Responsibility

Enriching and protecting our people and finding meaningful ways to be more accessible and inclusive are core to our business strategy. Our people-first approach extends globally through our corporate giving and community engagement initiatives.

In every community where we operate, we seek to enrich, engage, and protect our employees and neighbors.

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Watts and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide the best-shared definitions of our global challenges and serve as a framework to determine where we can make the greatest impact. Watts is focused on addressing key impacts and opportunities to minimize the environmental footprint of our global operations while improving the health, wellness and safety of our employees and customers, and protecting the communities where we operate. Our strategy is aligned with the SDGs, and we believe we can most meaningfully contribute to the following seven goals.

Gender Equality, SDG 5

We are committed to finding meaningful ways to be a more diverse, equitable and inclusive business. We seek to break down barriers in the workplace through measures that ensure we attract and retain diverse individuals, including across gender and race. In 2022, we established goals at 12 of our U.S. sites, and virtual and in-person campus recruitment activities for females and under-represented minorities. Our Women of Watts ERG launched a mentorship program in 2023 and promotes and cultivates a more inclusive environment.

Clean Water & Sanitation, SDG 6

We believe access to clean water is a fundamental human right, yet billions of people around the world experience water insecurity and water stress daily. Our products play an essential role in protecting and conserving water resources and the people who use and rely on them. We are committed to reducing the amount of water we use and discharge to manufacture our products, ensuring our business practices protect the water quality and supply in the communities where we operate, and developing innovative products and services that solve longstanding water conservation challenges. While water risk is a global issue, solutions must be local. In 2023, we provided clean, safe drinking water to 24,440 people through our ongoing partnership with the Planet Water Foundation and sponsorship of emergency support following an earthquake in Turkey.

Decent Work & Economic Growth, SDG 8

Promoting inclusive economic growth and development enables us to better serve our customers and communities, and we strive to provide our employees with meaningful career growth opportunities and a positive and safe work environment. As of December 31, 2023, we employed approximately 5,100 employees across 21 countries.* Our commitment extends beyond our company walls through educational partnerships and charitable donations. Our Human Rights Policy outlines our commitment to promoting human rights within our labor force. The policy applies not only to our employees but also to our supply chain partners.

Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure, SDG 9

For nearly 50 years, our backflow prevention valves have set the standard for backflow prevention for municipal water infrastructure, homes, and buildings. Backflow, or the reversal of the normal flow of water in a system, poses a threat to municipal water systems, and our backflow prevention valves help ensure that contaminated water does not reenter the potable water supply, saving millions of gallons of potable water from contamination each year. Through connecting our products with smart technology, we are able to alert building management of a leak or flood early on, which allows for early intervention, either manually or remotely.

Responsible Consumption & Production, SDG 12

We are committed to minimizing the environmental impacts of our operations by reducing our energy and water consumption, greenhouse emissions, and hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated at our sites. In 2023, despite including Enware in our environmental boundary, we reduced over 1,308 metric tons of Scope 1 and 2 market-based carbon emissions, as compared to 2022. We are identifying opportunities and investing in solutions to accelerate our transition to the circular economy and finding ways to appropriately divert waste from landfills. Our approach to waste reduction also includes eliminating single-use plastics and using reusable, recyclable, or compostable content in our packaging.

Climate Action, SDG 13

We know this decade is critical to mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, and we are committed to doing our part to build a low-carbon economy. Our strategy is rooted in existing UN frameworks and climate science. We aim to reduce not only our energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30% over the next 10 years, but also to help our customers reduce their carbon emissions by developing new technologies in our product portfolio. AERCO boilers helped customers avoid ~89,000 metric tons of CO2, which is nearly three times the Watts Scope 1 and 2 emissions for 2023. We supported decarbonization by installing solar at four of our manufacturing facilities, generating ~700,000 kWh of electricity. We continued adoption of energy efficiency best practices and purchase of RECs to offset our global emissions.

Life Below Water, SDG 14

Our oceans and seas are precious natural resources that are a source of livelihood for more than 3 billion people around the world. Our Ballast Water Management Systems provide accurate measurement of the total residual oxidant of ballast water, desalination, or wastewater discharge generated onboard marine shipping vessels. Through the use of our Ballast Water Management Systems, 2 billion gallons of transferred ballast water are analyzed per year. The IMO International Maritime Organization, a UN Special Agency, saw a need for this technology which helps prevent serious ecological, economic, and health problems from occurring due to invasive marine species being carried in a ship’s ballast water from their native environment to a new geographic area.

Archived Sustainability Reports

Watts Sustainability Report 2024 Watts Sustainability Report 2023 Watts Sustainability Report 2022 Watts Sustainability Report 2021 Watts Sustainability Report 2020 Watts Sustainability Report 2019