Investing in Water: The Top PFAS Stocks

The PFAS market is one of the fastest growing markets in the country and perhaps the largest ever opportunity in the environmental sector.

Today we’re going to look at publicly traded companies that have exposure to the PFAS treatment / remediation market, which are listed on American stock exchanges. Here’s a look at the top PFAS market stocks.

First off I’m Mike, I’ve worked in the water industry almost a decade, and that water industry knowledge has provided me a starting point to compile this list of public companies involved in the PFAS market. Please note, I am NOT a finance or investment professional, and this is NOT investment advice. In-turn if you are simply looking for PFAS treatment information, feel free to contact me, I’ll gladly point you in the right direction.

To start I’ll assume you have some knowledge of PFAS chemicals and challenges to remove PFAS from the environment. In April the Biden-Harris Administration finalized the first-ever national drinking water standard for PFAS. The EPA is setting enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels at 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, which will apply to all drinking water systems. PFAS is one of the strongest chemical bonds, which makes it very difficult to treat and even harder to dispose of. However being in the water industry I do know it’s absolutely possible to affectively treat and remediate PFAS even at this level. It’s will require an enormous amount resources, a variety of solutions, and a lot manpower.

I’ve seen the estimated PFAS market size listed anywhere from $13 billion to $200 billion. Please note everything detailed below comes from publicly available online information. Except for this: it’s my belief / opinion that at a 4PPT standard, the majority of the 168,000 water systems in the United States will need PFAS treatment. PFAS is everywhere, in household items, wastewater, rain water, and it’s even in Prime (https://www.greenmatters.com/big-impact/prime-drink-pfas-lawsuit). Beyond that we’ll see heavy PFAS contamination at virtually every aviation facility, along with many industrial sites that will require PFAS treatment. So again, my opinion is the PFAS market is larger than people realize. It also means we’ll require many technologies, solutions, and companies to tackle this.

Disclaimer: Not Financial Advice, Do Your Own Research

1. There are many international firms listed on foreign stock markets heavily involved in the PFAS Market — Laxness, Kuraray, Veolia, and Suez are a few well-known corporations along with others.

2. These are not the only companies in a PFAS Market, there are exponentially more private companies in this market as well.

3. It’s unknown to be what percentage of their revenue is attributed to the PFAS Market.

4. Finally this is not a recommendation for any of these companies or their services.

Here is My List of the Top PFAS Stocks

Waters Corporation (WAT) — How will everyone know they have PFAS in their water? Simple, they’ll have to test for it, and as you can imagine there is an increasing demand for PFAS testing. The main machine to test for PFAS is a mass spectrometer. Waters is a leader in this type of laboratory equipment, and according to their 2023 Investors Presentation — the global market for PFAS testing is growing +20% YOY. (As noted with all these companies listed, I have NOT analyzed the percentage of sales their PFAS centric services and products account for.)

AECOM (ACM) — A large public engineering firm with lots of exposure to water and wastewater. According to an AECOM Investor Presentation “ A portion of the total US market is addressable by AECOM engineering and consulting services to identify, design, treat, and remediate PFAS in water, wastewater, and the environment” (https://investors.aecom.com/static-files/2dfcf5c0-ab90-4e1c-a53d-3138f669f54e) Again is a large international engineering firm that works with water utilities on the water drinking water and wastewater side.

Montrose Environmental (MEG) — They’re pretty PFAS focused, and probably the most well documented PFAS mentioned stock. They did do a public offering recently which cited PFAS a reason to raise capital. (https://s25.q4cdn.com/108812351/files/doc_presentations/2024/05/Montrose_May_Investor-Deck.pdf)

Pentair (PNR) — A large water company, that offers PFAS filtration products with exposure to residential and commercial water. (https://www.pentair.com/en-us/water-softening-filtration/education/water-filtration-for-pfas.html)

Xylem (XYL) — is a large international water company with many revenue streams. PFAS treatment is one of those. They have added exposure to PFAS through their recent acquisition of Evoqua. (https://www.xylem.com/en-us/making-waves/water-utilities-news/combatting-pfas-through-proven-water-technologies/)

ARQ (ARQ) — Is an environmental company that is involved in the manufacturing of carbon. There are only a handful of ready for primetime PFAS treatment technologies is one of those. The EPA has a recommendation list of the Best Available Treatment Technologies (BATS) for PFAS — (https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-04/pfas-npdwr_fact-sheet_treatment_4.8.24.pdf) that list includes granular activated carbon, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and nanofiltration. At the time of this writing, carbon is clearly projected to be the most used treatment technology. (https://ir.arq.com/media/document/46483a54-bf3c-47da-b150-1154a4575a25/assets/Arq%20Q1%202024%20Earnings%20Presentation%20vFF%20(1).pdf?disposition=inline)

Minerals Technologies Inc. (MTX) — Is a mining company with multiple brands and product offerings, one of their brands is Cetco. Cetco has a product called Florsorb, which is a media you can use to treat PFAS. As of now it’s not on the EPA’s list of BATS (Best Available Technologies) for PFAS, but is an interesting options for treatment. (https://www.mineralstech.com/business-segments/performance-materials/cetco/environmental-products/products/fluoro-sorb)

Clean Harbors (CLH) — is an environmental company that is active in the disposal of PFAS. (https://www.cleanharbors.com/2024/clean-harbors-launches-total-pfas-solution-addressing-customers-forever-chemicals-needs)

Republic Services (RSG) — Is a waste management company and through their acquisition of US Ecology have PFAS disposal options. Per my knowledge research they’re the only large public waste management company with information about PFAS Disposal on their website, (https://www.republicservices.com/blog/safe-and-secure-pfas-disposal-we-got), again what percentage of their business is impacted by PFAS, I have no idea.

Finally, if you would like broad exposure to the public water industry, there are a handful of water ETFs — (PHO) and (FIW) are two popular ones that could be an option as some of these companies listed above are included in those ETFs.

Again, this is NOT investment advice, this is simply a list of publicly traded companies that have some exposure to the PFAS Treatment & Remediation market based on publicly available information. This is NOT a comprehensive list. These are not the only companies in a PFAS Market, there are more private and international companies working on PFAS Treatment. Finally this is NOT a recommendation for any of these companies or their services.

I’d be open to writing a few more of these “Investing in Water” articles, I believe my viewpoint and experience in the water industry provides me with some unique insights. If you’re interested in seeing something along those lines, leave a comment, also if you haven’t connected with me here on LinkedIn, you’re encouraged to do so.

Finally thank you for reading, I’m wishing you the best.