Company: BKR
Filing Date: 2025-02-04
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001701605-25-000035
Chunk: 107

Company: Baker Hughes Co
Filing Date: 2025-02-04
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 107
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 additional expenditures may be required to comply with environmental legal obligations; and the accidental, unauthorized discharge of hazardous materials.

Investor and public perception related to the Company's ESG performance as well as current and future ESG reporting requirements may affect our business and our operating results.

In recent years, companies across all industries are facing increasing scrutiny from a variety of stakeholders, including investor advocacy groups, proxy advisory firms, certain institutional investors and lenders, investment funds and other influential investors and rating agencies, related to their ESG and sustainability practices. If we do not adapt to or comply with investor or other stakeholder expectations and standards on ESG matters (or meet sustainability goals and targets that we have set), as they continue to evolve, or if we are perceived to have not responded appropriately or quickly enough to growing concern for ESG and sustainability issues, regardless of whether there is a regulatory or legal requirement to do so, we may face increased litigation risk, reputational damage and our business, financial condition and/or stock price could be materially and adversely affected.

In addition, our continuing efforts to research, establish, accomplish and accurately report on the implementation of our ESG strategy, including our emissions reduction commitments, may also create additional operational risks and expenses and expose us to reputational, legal and other risks. While we create and publish voluntary disclosures regarding ESG matters from time to time, some of the statements in those voluntary disclosures may be based on hypothetical expectations and assumptions that may or may not be representative of current or actual risks or events or forecasts of expected risks or events, including the costs associated therewith. Such expectations and assumptions are necessarily uncertain and may be prone to error or subject to misinterpretation given the long timelines involved and the lack of an established single approach to identifying, measuring and reporting on many ESG matters.

Our voluntary disclosures of ESG data are evaluated and rated by various organizations that assess corporate ESG performance. These organizations provide information to investors on corporate governance and related matters and have developed ratings processes for evaluating companies on their approach to ESG matters. Unfavorable ESG ratings, or our inability to meet the ESG standards set by specific investors, may lead to negative investor sentiment and reputational damage, which could have an adverse impact, among other things, on our stock price and cost of capital.

Regulatory requirements related to ESG or sustainability reporting have been adopted and may continue to be introduced in various jurisdictions, including, but not limited to, the European Union, Australia, and the State of California. These regulations will require the