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Community Impact
Partnerships to Improve Our Communities
Ecolab supports programs and initiatives that protect people and nature in the communities in which we live and work, aligning with Ecolab's Environmental Justice position. Through corporate giving and grants from the Ecolab Foundation, product donations and employee volunteerism, Ecolab is advancing its goals to support vital ecosystems and enable communities around the world to thrive.
Ecolab Foundation Giving
The Ecolab Foundation has contributed more than $152 million to nonprofit organizations since its inception in 1980.
2023 Impact
$18.5 million
to global communities on behalf of Ecolab, the Ecolab Foundation, and its employees
$5 million of this total was granted
to organizations that provided supported education, basic needs and job training
77% of grants aligned to our 2030 Impact initiative
with focused support for organizations that promote progress with underserved communities
Impact areas include:
- Youth and Education
- Civic and Community Development
- Arts and Culture
- Environment and Conservation
How To Apply for a Grant
To qualify for a community grant from the Ecolab Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization must fall within one of our four strategic areas and deliver services in the St. Paul, MN area where our corporate office is located, or in one of Ecolab U.S. regional communities where we have larger operations.
To find out more about program guidelines, please click on the appropriate "Instructions and Guidelines" link below.
Note:
- St. Paul, MN Area grant application process for the next funding cycle in 2025 opens Sept. 9, 2024 (due date Dec. 2, 2024), and is for current grantees and invite only at this time. Award decisions will be sent via email in March 2025.
- Other U.S. Locations grant applications are now CLOSED: 2024 award notifications will be sent via email between October and December.
- To access the application site (GrantsConnect) to check on applications/view historical applications, click on the link below to 'Access Grant Site [Other U.S. Locations]'
- Award decisions will be sent via email between October and December.
Product Donations
As the world’s leading supplier of cleaning and sanitizing products and solutions, Ecolab donates cleaning, health and sanitizing products in response to natural disasters and other crises.
In 2023, Ecolab donated $6.6 million in products to worldwide relief efforts.
Partnerships: Solutions for Life
Funded through the Ecolab Foundation, Solutions for Life enhances our mission to conserve water and improve hygiene around the world through collaborations with NGOs, global philanthropy and employee volunteerism. Through Solutions for Life, Ecolab has supported the work of several global nonprofit partners, including The Nature Conservancy, Water.org and the Project WET Foundation.
Ecolab continues to support The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to help secure and restore water sources around the globe.
- Ecolab supported TNC’s Our Water campaign helping TNC raise $21 million in private funds and $104 million in public funds. In addition, a gift from the Ecolab Foundation helped launch this campaign and a project to protect the Headwaters of the Mississippi River.
This gift is helping:
- Reach the ten-year goal to protect 100,000 acres and restore 100,000 more acres, impacting 1.4 million people.
- Restore wetlands and floodplains that treat thousands of acres in tributary rivers that flow into the Mississippi River.
- Provide general operating support to TNC in Minnesota for conservation and restoration of watersheds, forests, and prairies.
- In Brazil, a grant from the Ecolab Foundation is also helping protect 220 hectares of forest over the next ten years in the headwaters of the Upper Tietê Basin in Sao Paulo.
- See an example of how we partnered with the Nature Conservancy at our Garyville, Louisiana facility.
Ecolab supported Water.org with an unrestricted gift to help Water.org reach 100,000 people with improved access to water or sanitation contributing an estimated volumetric water benefit of 292M liters (~77M Gals) per year.
Our partnership with Water.org is an example of how we are taking action to help build community and economic resilience and equitable access to freshwater. These efforts are in alignment with our commitment to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, which calls for access to water and sanitation for all by 2030, as part of our 2030 Impact Goals.
Through our partnership with the Project WET Foundation (Water Education Today), children from around the globe can learn about water conservation and hygiene through The Clean and Conserve Education Program.
- Since its launch, this free curriculum (available in six languages) has reached more than 8 million individuals in 98 countries.
- In addition, Ecolab sponsors Project WET’s DiscoverWater.org, an interactive website that hosts activities about the role of water in our lives (available in English, Spanish and Mandarin).
- The website had 172,000 unique users in 2023.
In 2021, Ecolab helped fund a landmark water conservation project with the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) and the state of Arizona, one of the largest multi-sector collaborative drought response efforts ever achieved. Facilitated by Business for Water Stewardship, a program of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, funding support helps secure 150,000 acre-feet of conservation (nearly 49 billion gallons of water) to help shore up Lake Mead through the CRIT system conservation project.