Ecolab, Inc. , headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an American global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets.It was originally founded as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, and renamed to Ecolab in 1986.n 1986 the company changed its name from Economics Laboratory to Ecolab Inc. In 1987 Ecolab purchased the lawncare servicer provider ChemLawn for US$376 million. It sold the acquisition in 1992 to ServiceMaster for US$103 million as it couldn't turn ChemLawn into a profitable business.