Water, Waste & Environmental

Water, Waste and Environmental Services Valuation Benchmarks

Water hygiene, legionella control, drainage, waste and recycling and wider environmental services sit behind a permanent regulatory floor. The publicly traded groups in this space are among the most consistently acquisitive in building services, and their reported multiples show what that appetite is worth.

What these companies are, in plain English

Every company on this page is publicly traded: its shares are bought and sold on a stock exchange such as the London Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. Anyone can buy a share, and the law requires these companies to publish their revenue, profit and debt in full. That is why we can show what buyers pay for them.

Your business is almost certainly private: the shares are held by you and perhaps a few others, and nothing has to be published beyond your filed accounts. Private companies sell for less than publicly traded ones of the same type, because a buyer cannot sell the shares on again at the click of a button and carries more risk in checking the numbers. Treat the figures here as the ceiling the market sets, not the price your business would fetch.

What are publicly traded water, waste & environmental companies valued at?

Publicly traded water, waste & environmental companies, meaning those whose shares are bought and sold on a stock exchange, are valued at a median of 15.3x EV/EBITDA, across a range of 7.7x to 17.2x, based on 18 companies whose shares trade on a stock exchange, as at 2026-08-14.

Private companies in the same trades sell for less than this. Stock market valuations reflect scale, the ease of selling shares on again and full public reporting, none of which a private seller carries.

Median EV/EBITDA	15.3x
Range	7.7x – 17.2x
Constituents	18

Last reviewed August 2026 by Joe Lewin, Founder and Managing Director, DealFlowAgent.

The publicly traded companies in this sector

Publicly traded Water, Waste & Environmental companies on stock exchanges worldwide, with reported valuation multiples
	Stock exchange	Market cap					As at / source
Casella Waste Systems, Inc. Recycling and resource recovery	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: CWST · United States	$2bn to $10bn	17.2x	3.7x	21.4%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. Water treatment and environmental services	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: CWCO · Cayman Islands	Under $500m	16.6x	2.9x	17.8%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Clean Harbors, Inc. Recycling and resource recovery	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: CLH · United States	$10bn to $50bn	16.5x	3.2x	19.2%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Waste Connections, Inc. Waste collection and management	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: WCN · United States	Over $50bn	16.5x	5.3x	32.0%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Close the Loop Ltd Recycling and resource recovery	Australian Securities Exchange Ticker ASX: CLG · Australia	Under $500m	16.3x	0.5x	3.3%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
The York Water Company Water treatment and environmental services	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: YORW · United States	$500m to $2bn	16.0x	8.8x	54.5%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
American States Water Company Water treatment and environmental services	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: AWR · United States	$2bn to $10bn	15.9x	6.3x	39.8%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Middlesex Water Company Water treatment and environmental services	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: MSEX · United States	$500m to $2bn	15.9x	7.5x	47.1%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Global Water Resources, Inc. Water treatment and environmental services	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: GWRS · United States	Under $500m	15.4x	6.5x	41.9%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Republic Services, Inc. Waste collection and management	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: RSG · United States	Over $50bn	15.2x	4.7x	31.1%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
GFL Environmental Inc. Recycling and resource recovery	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: GFL · Canada	$10bn to $50bn	15.1x	3.6x	24.0%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
American Water Works Company, Inc. Water treatment and environmental services	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: AWK · United States	$10bn to $50bn	14.7x	8.1x	55.1%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Waste Management, Inc. Waste collection and management	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: WM · United States	Over $50bn	14.5x	4.4x	30.3%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Cleanaway Waste Management Limited Waste collection and management	Australian Securities Exchange Ticker ASX: CWY · Australia	$2bn to $10bn	13.4x	2.0x	15.2%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
California Water Service Group Water treatment and environmental services	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: CWT · United States	$2bn to $10bn	13.2x	4.5x	34.3%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Darling Ingredients Inc. Recycling and resource recovery	New York Stock Exchange Ticker NYSE: DAR · United States	$10bn to $50bn	13.0x	2.2x	17.2%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Artesian Resources Corporation Water treatment and environmental services	NASDAQ, New York Ticker NASDAQ: ARTNA · United States	$500m to $2bn	10.6x	4.7x	44.0%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations
Seche Environnement SA Waste collection and management	Euronext Ticker Euronext: SCHP · France	$500m to $2bn	7.7x	1.1x	14.3%	—	2026-08-14 Investor relations

What owners can learn from this

Permits and licences are balance sheet assets

Publicly traded waste operators value permitted capacity explicitly. Private buyers do the same with licences, consents and accreditations.

Monitoring contracts outrank remedial work

Scheduled monitoring produces the recurring line the market pays for. Remedial and reactive work is valued as a lower quality earnings stream.

Route density decides the margin

In waste and water hygiene alike, revenue per vehicle per day is the operating metric the publicly traded set reports and buyers underwrite.

Compliance risk transfers to the buyer

Weak documentation is a discount, not a negotiation point. The publicly traded groups' own disclosures show how seriously the risk is taken.

Environmental mandates keep widening the market

The publicly traded set attributes growth to tightening regulation rather than to construction volumes, which is why the multiples are less cyclical.

Frequently asked questions

What multiple do publicly traded waste and water companies trade at?

The dated constituent table on this page gives each company's reported EV/EBITDA multiple and the filing it came from, with the sector median above.

How does that compare with a private water hygiene business?

Private businesses trade at a discount to the stock market median. The bridge on this page shows the range and reconciles it against our waste management and water hygiene guides.

Why a private company advisory firm publishes this

DealFlowAgent is a sell-side mergers and acquisitions advisory firm. We act for owners of privately held water, waste & environmental businesses, typically between one million and fifty million pounds of enterprise value, and we run the sale process from preparation through to completion. We do not advise on shares, we do not manage money, and we have no interest in any company named on this page.

These figures are published because they are the only fully disclosed evidence of what buyers pay for this kind of work. They set the ceiling. What a private owner actually achieves is set by the size, contract quality and management depth of their own business, which is what our sector valuation guides and free valuation cover.

Citing this data and press contact

Journalists, analysts and researchers are welcome to reproduce these figures with attribution. Every number is a dated snapshot of publicly reported company data, not a forecast or an opinion on any share.

How to cite

"DealFlowAgent, Water, Waste & Environmental public market benchmarks, publicly traded comparable library, market values as at 14 August 2026 and earnings evidence to 19 August 2026."

Please link to this page when the figures are quoted. Source documents for each constituent are linked in the table above.

Press contact and commentary

Joe Lewin, Founder of DealFlowAgent, gives commentary on private company valuation, buyer behaviour and consolidation in building services, facilities management and healthcare. Commentary is confined to private M&A. We do not comment on the merits of any listed security.

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