KAISER ALUMINUM CORP (KALU) Business

Item 1. Business

Availability of Information

We file Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements, any amendments to those reports and statements and other information with the SEC. You may obtain the documents that we file electronically from the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. Our filings with the SEC are made available free of charge on our website at http://www.kaiseraluminum.com as soon as reasonably practicable after we file or furnish the materials with the SEC. News releases, announcements of upcoming earnings calls and events in which our management participates or hosts with members of the investment community and an archive of webcasts of such earnings calls and investor events and related investor presentations, are also available on our website. Information on our website is not incorporated into this Form 10-K unless expressly noted.

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Business Overview

Leading positions in select end markets

Kaiser Aluminum Corporation, a Delaware corporation, manufactures and sells semi-fabricated specialty aluminum mill products that include flat-rolled (plate, sheet, and coil), extruded (rod, bar, hollows, and shapes), drawn (rod, bar, pipe, tube, and wire), and certain cast aluminum products. We strategically focus our business on select end markets with demanding applications and high barriers to entry, where we believe we have sustainable competitive advantages that allow us to earn premium pricing and generate long-term profitable growth. The end market applications on which we have historically focused include: (i) Aero/HS Products; (ii) Packaging; (iii) GE Products; and (iv) Automotive Extrusions. These technically challenging applications leverage our core metallurgical and process technology capabilities to produce highly engineered mill products with differentiated characteristics that are required for the particular end uses.

We strive to strengthen our competitive position through strategic capital investments aimed at increasing our capacity and expanding our manufacturing capabilities. While some of our recent capital projects have focused on further enhancing manufacturing cost efficiency, improving product quality, and promoting operational security, a significant portion over the past several years related to our investment in a fourth coating line at Warrick to increase our capacity for higher margin coated aluminum material for packaging applications and the Trentwood modernization projects, which focused on equipment upgrades throughout the process flow to reduce conversion costs, increase efficiency and further improve our competitive cost position on all products produced at Trentwood. A significant portion of the Trentwood investment also focused on modernizing legacy equipment and the process flow for thin gauge plate to achieve KaiserSelect® quality enhancements for Aero/HS Products and GE Products. We believe these improvements have allowed and will continue to allow us to gain incremental manufacturing capacity to enable future sales growth.

Supplier of choice

We have long-standing relationships with our customers, which consist primarily of blue-chip companies, including leading aerospace and automotive manufacturers, tier one aerospace and automotive suppliers, beverage and food packaging manufacturers, and metal service centers. In our served markets, we seek to be the supplier of choice by pursuing “Best in Class” customer satisfaction driven by quality, availability, service and delivery performance. We believe we differentiate our product portfolio through our broad product offering and our KaiserSelect® products, which are engineered and manufactured to deliver enhanced product characteristics with improved consistency, so as to result in better performance, lower waste and, in many cases, lower production cost for our customers.

We have a culture of continuous improvement that is facilitated by the KPS. We believe KPS enables us to continue to reduce our own manufacturing costs and eliminate waste throughout the value chain. We strive to tightly integrate the management of our operations across multiple production facilities, product lines and target markets in order to increase the efficiency of product flow to our customers.

Another key component of our business model is to maintain financial strength and flexibility through the business and economic cycles. We manage and monitor our financial strength through routine analysis of our liquidity position under scenarios of varying business and economic cycles and maintaining a disciplined approach to leverage.

We believe that our product performance and customer experiences have afforded us a leading position in the attractive, growing end markets we serve. With our strong balance sheet and liquidity position, as well as our disciplined approach to capital allocation, we believe that we are well-positioned to benefit from positive secular trends across our served markets, including growing aerospace demand driven by increasing air travel and space-related applications, continued light weighting initiatives in the automotive industry, and long-term demand for coated packaging products supported by consumer preference for sustainable and recyclable materials.

Our Products

Overview

Our products are highly engineered aluminum solutions designed to meet the demanding performance requirements of the diverse end markets we serve. These solutions also contribute to reduced carbon emissions by enabling improved product performance, light weighting in applications such as aircraft and transportation for fuel efficiency, and increasing the use of recyclable aluminum beverage and food packaging. Overall, we remain focused on providing products that meet the needs of our customers for demanding applications while being part of the carbon solution for “Best in Class” customer satisfaction.

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Aero/HS Products. Our Aero/HS Products include heat treated plate and sheet, hard alloy extruded shapes, cold finish rod and bar, seamless drawn tube and billet used for a wide variety of end uses in the global aerospace, space, and defense industries. Typical applications are structural aircraft components that must perform consistently under extreme variations in temperature and pressure due to frequent take-offs, landings, and changes in altitude. Required physical properties include high tensile strength, superior fatigue resistance, and exceptional durability even in harsh environments. We use high-strength 2000, 7000, and certain 6000-series aluminum alloys and apply a variety of thermal practices to manufacture our Aero/HS Products to meet the demanding specifications required for such safety-critical applications. While competing materials such as titanium and composites have displaced aluminum for certain applications on several newer aircraft designs, aluminum continues to be the material used most extensively for structural aerospace and defense applications because it is light weight, can meet demanding performance requirements, and is cost effective relative to other materials.

Packaging. Our Packaging products consist of bare and coated 3000 and 5000-series alloy aluminum coil used in the beverage and food packaging industry, with applications that include coated food stock, coated end and tab stock, body stock and bottle stock. Our Warrick facility is dedicated to the packaging industry in North America, with one of the world’s largest ingot casting facilities, hot and cold rolling, coated finishing, and slitting capacity. Warrick has a unique capability to produce high-margin coated packaging products representing approximately 75% of our total Packaging shipments in 2025.

GE Products. Our broad portfolio of GE Products consists primarily of 6000-series aluminum alloy plate, sheet, rod, bar, tube, wire and standard extruded shapes. The 6000-series alloy is an extremely versatile, medium-strength, heat treatable alloy that can be both extruded and rolled. Our GE Products have a wide range of uses and applications, many of which involve further fabrication for numerous transportation and other industrial end market applications where the machining of plate, rod and bar is intensive. For example, our GE Products are used to produce armor for military vehicles, ordnances, manufacturing cells for semiconductor production, numerous electronic devices, power transmission bus pipe and bar, after-market motor sport parts, tooling plate, parts for machinery and equipment, bolts, screws, and rivets.

Automotive Extrusions. Automotive Extrusions consists primarily of 6000-series extruded aluminum products for many North American automotive applications. Examples of the variety of extruded products that we supply to the automotive industry include extruded products for the body-in-white structural components, crash management systems, anti-lock braking systems and drawn tube for drive shafts. For some Automotive Extrusions, we perform limited fabrication, including sawing and cutting to length. In recent years, automotive original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and their suppliers have, at an increasing pace, been converting many automotive components that historically were made of steel to aluminum to decrease weight without sacrificing structural integrity and safety performance and thereby achieve greater fuel efficiency standards mandated by stringent United States’ Corporate Average Fuel Economy or equivalent state regulations. Our Automotive Extrusions are designed and produced to provide specific mechanical properties and performance attributes required in automotive applications across a broad mix of North American OEMs and automotive platforms. We believe that these attributes are not easily replicated by our competitors and are important to our customers, who are typically tier one automotive suppliers.

Markets

Sales, Marketing, and Distribution

Industry sales for fabricated products fluctuate in response to competitive and market dynamics. Sales are made directly to customers by our sales personnel located in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Our sales and marketing efforts have historically focused on the markets for Aero/HS Products, Packaging, GE Products, and Automotive Extrusions. The majority of our sales are to North America based customers.

Aero/HS Products. We sell our Aero/HS Products to metal service centers, as well as directly to aerospace OEMs and tier one manufacturers. Sales are made primarily under long-term agreements, but also on an order-by-order basis. We serve this market with a North American and Western Europe sales force focused on Aero/HS Products. Growth in demand for aerospace plate has exceeded demand growth for other forms of Aero/HS Products, as aircraft manufacturers have migrated to monolithic component design, where a single piece of aluminum, usually a plate, is heavily machined to form a desired part rather than creating the same part by assembling sub-components made of aluminum sheet, extrusions or forgings that are affixed to one another using rivets, bolts or welds. Demand for our Aero/HS Products is heavily impacted by commercial airframe build rates and, to a lesser degree, by business jets, space applications, defense related airframes, and other products. In addition, unanticipated changes in build rates and mix of aircraft models being built can trigger restocking or destocking throughout the aerospace supply chain, temporarily impacting demand. While commercial airframe build rates can be subject to certain short-term events (see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” included in this Form 10-K), we believe the long-term demand for air travel and fuel efficiency will continue to drive long-term growth for our products.

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Packaging. Our Packaging products are sold primarily to North American beverage and food can manufacturers. Sales are made primarily under long-term agreements by a North American direct sales force. Aluminum can demand is driven by the packaging industry’s shift towards environmentally sustainable materials due to the fact that aluminum is infinitely recyclable and has the highest consumer recycling rate among beverage containers. We anticipate further growth will be underpinned by sustainability trends, the secular shift from plastic to aluminum and the fact that North American packaging capacity has been reallocated towards other end markets, including automotive and industrial. Short-term demand can be impacted by unanticipated changes in end consumer preferences for certain canned beverages and/or foods and pet foods which can trigger restocking or destocking throughout the packaging supply chain.

GE Products. A majority of our GE Products are sold to large metal service centers in North America on an order-by-order basis, with orders primarily consisting of standard catalog type items shipped with a relatively short lead-time. We service this market with a North American sales force focused on GE Products. Demand for our GE Products is closely related to North America general industrial and semi-conductor growth and the recent desire of many companies to lessen their risk of supply chain disruptions by reshoring suppliers and shortening the supply chain. Demand is also impacted by the destocking and restocking of inventory throughout the supply chain.

Automotive Extrusions. Our Automotive Extrusions are sold primarily to tier one automotive suppliers. Almost all sales are made under long-term agreements entered through direct channels using a North American direct sales force that works closely with our technical sales support organization. Demand for Automotive Extrusions is determined based upon automotive build rates in North America and aluminum content. We believe fuel efficiency standards and continued consumer preference for lightweight vehicles will continue to drive growth in demand for aluminum extruded components in passenger vehicles as a replacement for the heavier weight of steel components.

Customers

Our customer base is made up of a combination of key manufacturers and tier one suppliers in the Aero/HS Products, Packaging and Automotive Extrusions end markets and large metal service centers in the GE Products end market. As of December 31, 2025, approximately 70% of our shipments is sold directly to manufacturers or tier one suppliers and approximately 30% is sold to metal service centers. For the years ended December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2024, our largest customer accounted for 16% of Net sales. While the loss of this customer could have a material adverse effect on us, we believe that our long-standing relationship with the customer is good and that the risk of losing the customer is remote. See Note 17 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K for information about our significant concentrations.

Competition

The semi-fabricated aluminum industry is highly competitive. We seek to further differentiate ourselves from our competitors through our ongoing investments to continuously improve the quality and machinability of our products, manufacture and deliver unique product attributes (KaiserSelect®) and provide a broad product offering while maintaining a strong customer focus to achieve “Best in Class” status in our markets.

Our primary competitors in the global market for Aero/HS Products are Arconic Corporation, Constellium N.V. and Novelis Inc. In North America, our primary competitors for Packaging are Arconic Corporation, Constellium N.V., Novelis Inc. and Tri-Arrows Aluminum, Inc. In serving our North American customers for both GE Products and Automotive Extrusions, our primary competitors are Arconic Corporation and Norsk Hydro ASA, and for certain of these products, we also compete with smaller, regional participants. In North America, we also compete with heat treat plate imported from South Africa, Europe, and China. Some of our competitors are substantially larger, have greater financial resources and may have other strategic advantages.

Because many of our products are used in food, beverage and critical safety related applications, our customers have demanding standards for product quality and consistency that make it difficult to become a qualified supplier. Suppliers must pass a rigorous qualification process to sell to both airframe and automotive manufacturers and must also make significant investments in infrastructure and specialized equipment to supply products for these high strength applications. Further, sophisticated manufacturing processes make it difficult to become a qualified supplier, even with proper equipment. For example, producing heat treat plate and sheet products, particularly for aerospace applications, requires technological expertise that only a few companies have developed through significant investment in research and development and decades of operating experience. To be a supplier in the packaging market, demanding standards are also required. Producing coated end, tab, and body stock for the can market requires the development of alloys and application of coatings that must pass stringent customer qualifications, some which take multiple years to complete, and be compliant with Food and Drug Administration regulations. Our experienced and dedicated research and development team, combined with our Customer Service group, coordinates with coating suppliers, manufacturing operations, and our customers to create these alloy and coating systems.

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Research and Development

Our products are differentiated based on the metallurgy and physical properties of the metal and special characteristics that are required for particular end uses. A significant amount of our research and development is devoted to product and process development within our production operations and is largely focused on controlling the manufacturing process to improve product quality, ensure consistency, and enhance one or more specific product attributes. This has resulted in the creation and delivery of our highly differentiated KaiserSelect® products.

We operate the following research and development centers:

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Rolling and Heat Treat Center. The Rolling and Heat Treat Center located at our Trentwood facility has complete hot rolling, cold rolling, and heat treat capabilities to simulate, in small lots, processing of flat-rolled products for process and product development on an experimental scale.

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Metallurgical Analysis Centers. The Metallurgical Analysis Centers consists of a full metallographic laboratory and a scanning electron microscope to support research and development programs as well as respond to plant technical service requests. The centers are located at our Trentwood, Warrick, and Newark facilities and service our aerospace and commercial plate business, packaging business, and long products business, respectively.

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Solidification and Casting Center. The Solidification and Casting Center located at our Newark facility has a developmental casting unit capable of casting billets and ingots for extrusion and rolling experiments. The casting unit is also capable of casting full size billets and ingots for processing on the production extrusion presses and rolling mills.

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Packaging Coating Center. The Packaging Coating Center located at our Warrick facility is focused on the forming and coating of our packaging products and has laboratory-scaled equipment capable of producing beverage end and food cans enabling the evaluation of new coatings and processes for packaging products.

Our Imperial Machine & Tool Co. (“IMT”) subsidiary provides us with significant technology and intellectual property that complements our metallurgical and application engineering expertise to further advance our capability to deliver highly engineered solutions for our customers.

We hold numerous patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights that relate to the design, use, and marketing of products. We consider this intellectual property to be important, but no single property is material to the overall conduct of our business.

Resources

Manufacturing Processes

We use two main processes, flat rolling, and extrusion/drawing, to produce our semi-fabricated products using a cast of alloyed prime and recycled aluminum in the desired forms and dimensions and with the desired physical properties. Both processes start by heating an aluminum rolling ingot or extrusion billet to an elevated temperature at which the metal is malleable and then applying pressure in a manner that both forces the metal into a desired shape and begins the “working” of the metal to enhance its strength and related properties.

Flat rolling. Our manufacturing process for aluminum flat-rolled products uses ingot, a large rectangular slab of aluminum, as the starter material. The ingot is processed through a series of rolling operations that can be done at elevated (hot) or room (cold) temperatures. Finishing steps may include heat treatment, annealing, stretching, leveling, coating, and slitting to achieve the desired metallurgical, dimensional and/or performance characteristics. Aluminum flat-rolled products are manufactured in a variety of alloys, a range of tempers (hardness), gauges (thickness), widths, and various finishes. Flat-rolled aluminum semi‑finished products are classified as plate (0.250 inches or greater in thickness), sheet (0.249 inches down to 0.008 inches in thickness) or coil (0.249 inches down to 0.001 inches in thickness).

Extrusion and Drawing. Our extrusion process begins with a cast billet, which is an aluminum cylinder of varying length and diameter cut from a cast log. After heating the billet to make the metal malleable, it is placed into an extrusion press and squeezed (extruded) through a die that gives the material the desired two-dimensional cross section. The material can be quenched as it leaves the press, or processed through a post-extrusion heat treatment cycle, to control the material’s physical properties. The extrusion is straightened, typically by stretching, and then cut to length before being hardened in aging ovens. Drawing is a fabrication operation in which extruded tubes and rods are pulled through a die, or drawn. The primary purpose of drawing is to reduce the diameter and wall thickness while improving physical properties and dimensions. Material may go through multiple drawing steps to achieve the final dimensional specifications. Extruded and drawn semi-fabricated products are manufactured in a variety of alloys and a range of tempers.

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In addition, some of our locations have remelt and casting operations to produce the ingot or log for flat rolling or extrusion processing, respectively. To produce the ingot or log, we purchase primary aluminum and/or recycled scrap aluminum segregated by alloys, necessary to create various aluminum alloys. We also recycle internally generated scrap from our own manufacturing processes. Initially in solid form, aluminum is heated in a vessel to a temperature at which it melts. While in molten form, additional metals (aluminum alloyed scrap, alloy metals, primary aluminum, or high purity aluminum) are introduced to achieve the proper mixture of chemical elements for a particular aluminum alloy. When the desired chemical composition of the molten metal has been achieved, it is poured through a mold in which the molten metal cools in a controlled manner and solidifies into a rolling ingot or extrusion log. The size of the mold determines the dimensions of the rolling ingot or extrusion log. Our casting operations at our facilities in Kalamazoo, Michigan; London, Ontario; Los Angeles, California; and Heath, Ohio produce extrusion log and cut billet for their operations and for our other facilities that do not have casting operations. Our Trentwood and Warrick facilities cast rolling ingot for their own consumption.

Our IMT subsidiary is a leader in advanced manufacturing methods and techniques, which include multi-axis CNC machining, 3D Printing, welding, and fabrication for aerospace and defense, high tech, general industrial, and automotive applications.

Many of our facilities employ the same basic manufacturing process and produce the same types of products. We make a significant effort to tightly integrate the management of our multiple manufacturing locations, product lines, and end market applications to most efficiently and effectively serve the needs of our customers. We centralize purchasing of our primary, rolling ingot and scrap, or recycled, aluminum requirements and related alloys used in the production process in order to better manage price, credit, and other benefits. We believe that integration of our operations allows us to capture efficiencies while allowing our facilities to remain highly focused on their specific processes and end market applications.

Raw Materials

To make our fabricated products, we purchase primary aluminum and scrap, or recycled aluminum from third-party suppliers in varying percentages depending on various market factors, including price and availability. The price we pay for primary aluminum is typically based on the average MWTP, which reflects the primary aluminum supply/demand dynamics in North America. The average LME and the average Midwest Premium for 2025, 2024 and 2023 were $1.19 + $0.59, $1.10 + $0.19 and $1.02 + $0.23, respectively. Scrap aluminum is typically purchased at a discount to the MWTP but can require additional processing.

Suppliers

We purchase raw materials from a wide array of vendors. In most instances, we have multiple vendors of raw materials to mitigate the risk of an interruption of supply should one of them underperform or discontinue operations. A number of our input materials are commodities, which are subject to market price fluctuations, which we strive to mitigate with our metal price neutrality and hedging programs. See Note 17 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K for information about our significant concentrations.

Pricing, Metal Price Risk Management, and Hedging

Our pricing of semi-fabricated aluminum products is generally intended to lock in a conversion margin (representing the value added from the fabrication process) and to pass aluminum and certain alloy price fluctuations through to our customers. In order to meet our objective to be metal price neutral, we manage the risk of fluctuations in the price of aluminum through our pricing policies and use of financial derivatives. Our three principal pricing mechanisms are as follows:

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Spot price. Some of our customers for Aero/HS Products and a majority of our customers for GE Products pay a product price that incorporates the spot price of primary aluminum (MWTP) in effect at the time of shipment to a customer. Spot prices for these products change regularly based on competitive dynamics. Fluctuation in the underlying aluminum price is a significant factor influencing changes in competitive spot prices. Through spot pricing, we can generally pass aluminum price risk through to customers.

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Index-based price. This pricing structure calls for our customer to pay a product price that incorporates a monthly index-based price for primary aluminum, such as the average MWTP for primary aluminum. Index-based pricing typically allows us to pass aluminum price risk through to the customer and applies to a majority of our Aero/HS Products and Packaging sales and virtually all of our Automotive Extrusions sales.

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Firm-price. Some of our customers who commit to volumes and timing of delivery pay a firm-price, creating aluminum price risk that we must hedge. We are able to limit exposure to aluminum price risks created by firm-price customer sales contracts by using third-party hedging instruments. Total fabricated product shipments for which we were subject to price risk were, in millions of pounds, 126.7, 154.9, and 207.5 during 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively.

In addition to the aluminum pricing mechanisms described above, we also strive to pass through the cost of certain alloys through either pricing adders or surcharge mechanisms. In some cases, the passing through of this alloy cost can lag the actual alloy cost, the timing of which is dependent on market conditions and customer agreements, with a favorable impact to us when alloy prices decline and an adverse impact to us when alloy prices increase. As with aluminum, we, from time to time, enter into either hedging transactions with third parties or firm price physical contracts to minimize the impact of alloy price fluctuations.

Seasonality

Under normal operating and economic conditions, we generally have immaterial fluctuations in our overall portfolio quarter‑over‑quarter results. Within our individual end markets, our Packaging shipments are generally weighted towards the second half of the year as compared to the first half while our Aero/HS Products, GE Products and Automotive Extrusions shipments are generally weighted slightly more toward the first half of the year as compared to the second half. This fluctuation in shipments is usually driven by lower demand during summer vacation and year-end holiday shutdowns and year-end inventory rebalancing by our end customers. During these periods of lower demand, we generally perform planned major maintenance at our facilities, which can affect cost and operating results.

Government Regulation

Our operations are subject to numerous federal, state, and local employment, import/export, reporting, environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. While we are subject to a wide variety of government regulations, generally those most impactful to our results of operations and capital expenditures are the environmental laws and regulations that impose limitations on the discharge of hazardous materials and pollutants, including greenhouse gasses, and establish standards for the handling, transportation, distribution, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials and solid and hazardous wastes. These regulations may require the investigation, assessment, cleanup or monitoring of, or compensation for, environmental impacts, including natural resource damages. We continually monitor our operations with respect to potential environmental issues, including changes in legal requirements and remediation technologies. We have established procedures for regularly evaluating environmental loss contingencies. Our environmental accruals represent our undiscounted estimate of costs reasonably expected to be incurred based on presently enacted laws and regulations, existing requirements, currently available facts, existing technology, and our assessment of the likely remediation actions to be taken. See Note 10 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K.

Government Contracts

We are one of the few remaining United States based aluminum semi-fabricated producers that supply the American defense industry. Although our products are used in a wide variety of military applications, including military aircraft, armored vehicles, and ordnance, these products are typically sourced from us by a number of service centers and machine shops that are suppliers to the defense industry. As we generally sell to the chain of suppliers who either subcontract with direct contractors or directly contract with the government, we do not have significant direct government agreements.

Human Capital

At December 31, 2025, we employed 3,840 people, of which approximately 3,760 were employed in our manufacturing, sales, and support office locations and approximately 80 were employed in a corporate capacity.

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Governance and Culture

Our talented workforce is a key factor underlying our success. We strive to be the employer of choice by providing equal employment and a non‑discriminatory workplace, protecting the health and safety of our employees, providing training programs and maintaining a positive and constructive relationship with labor unions of which a majority of our employees are members. Our values support and serve as the foundation for our strategic initiatives and are intended to reflect the company’s “tone at the top” which we believe sustains our culture; a culture that continues to drive our behavior. In addition, the goal of being a valued corporate citizen guides our environmental, social, and governance decisions. We are committed to being socially responsible and active members of our industry and the communities in which we operate, and our employees and their families live.

Consistent with our corporate values, we promote fair business practices and a culture of accountability, responsibility, and ethical behavior through:

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strong emphasis on the importance of integrity and competence;

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conducting annual governance surveys to assess our culture and the effectiveness of our training;

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adopting and enforcing our policies, including Corporate Governance Guidelines, Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, Human Rights Policy, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Policy, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations; and

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encouraging the reporting of illegal or unethical behavior, including the use of In-Touch, a third-party compliance feedback program.

We believe respecting human rights is a fundamental part of our values and corporate responsibility. We strive to respect and promote human rights in our relationships with our employees, suppliers, customers, and stakeholders and are guided by the principles of the International Bill of Human Rights (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two international covenants) and the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Our Human Rights Policy is communicated to our employees as part of their annual code of conduct training, and we expect our employees to uphold this policy. In addition, our suppliers should manage relationships consistent with our Supplier Code of Conduct and we expect our suppliers to uphold this policy.

Preferred Employer

We are committed to being a preferred employer by, among other things: (i) attracting, developing and retaining the best people from all cultures and segments of the population based on ability; (ii) providing a safe and clean workplace; (iii) treating all employees with dignity and respect; (iv) being responsive to all employees; (v) providing an environment of diversity, inclusion, belonging, empowerment, responsibility and accountability; (vi) assuring effective, open two-way individual and group communications; (vii) developing and maintaining a positive relationship with all employees and their designated representatives; and (viii) offering competitive and equal pay and benefits that attract and retain employees. We focus on: (i) continuing to consider diversity of backgrounds and experiences as we identify training cohorts and opportunities; (ii) leveraging the views and perspectives of our diverse employees and leaders; (iii) developing meaningful metrics and benchmarks by location and job function to measure the effectiveness of our efforts; (iv) fostering relationships with educational institutions, employment agencies, and professional groups to expand the pool of potential candidates and employees to achieve a more diverse workforce; and (v) actively recruiting from military bases for military and veteran hiring. Our Human Rights Policy and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Policy, which align with our corporate values and Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, are overseen by our Board of Directors and senior leadership team.

Labor Practices and Policies

Safety. We believe employee safety begins with a strong and consistent tone at the top through our executive leadership with oversight provided by our Corporate Health and Safety team, led by our Executive Vice President – Manufacturing. To help us achieve and maintain a strong safety culture, we have robust compliance and assessment programs such as annual safety planning, monthly safety calls, routine performance reviews against targets, and routine audits. In addition, we partner with the USW and various industry groups, including the Aluminum Association, to share and identify best practices. We use both internal and external resources, including the American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization, to assess our compliance with regulatory and internal standards, providing training, performing risk assessments, audits and loss control inspections, and developing mitigation strategies with particular emphasis on risks with a greater potential for severe injury. We stress risk awareness and safe job practices and engage our employees in conversations about safety and safety training using a variety of communication channels, including one-on-one communications.

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We also believe that having a culture of health and safety involves every employee at every level throughout the organization assuming responsibility to guard against workplace injuries by recognizing risks and taking other actions to minimize injury risk and severity. Risk reduction is a key initiative at each of our facilities and part of our annual planning process and we are committed to nurturing a culture consistent with being a preferred employer. We monitor our progress through routine reviews of our safety process and performance. We utilize both leading and trailing indicators to monitor our progress. Trailing indicators, such as total case incident rate (“TCIR”), lost-time case incident rate (“LTIR”), and days away, restricted, or transferred rate, help us monitor our safety performance. Leading indicators, such as severe injury or fatality potential and actual incident rate, near‑misses, timely addressing of internal and external audit findings, safety plan execution information and safety culture risk, help us monitor and assess risks and the effectiveness of our safety plans and processes. Plant safety metrics are integrated into our monthly quality, production, and financial reports and are reviewed by the senior leadership team every month. In addition, TCIR and LTIR safety modifiers are included in each of our short-term incentive compensation plans, including the corporate plan applicable to each of our executive officers and members of senior management.

Health. Over the years, we have implemented programs on a Company-wide basis to increase awareness of the importance of employee wellness. We have continued to introduce programs to educate and assist employees to make healthy lifestyle choices and have offered incentives and discounts to encourage participation across the organization, including:

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annual onsite health biometric screenings;

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preventative vaccination programs (e.g.: flu shots);

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an employee assistance program, providing confidential assistance with healthcare issues and the healthcare system, including crisis and emergency help;

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a smoking/tobacco cessation program;

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internal, as well as third-party, online wellness workshops, including workshops on nutrition and fitness; and

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wellness coaching.

Labor Union Affiliations. We believe in freedom of association and respect our employees’ choice to be represented or not represented by a union in accordance with the laws of the states and countries where we operate, without fear of reprisal, intimidation, or harassment. Approximately 65% of our employees are represented by labor unions under labor contracts with varying durations and expiration dates. The following table shows each manufacturing location, the primary union affiliation, if any, and the expiration date for the current union contracts as of December 31, 2025. As indicated in the table, our union affiliations are with the USW, International Association of Machinists (“IAM”), and International Brotherhood of Teamsters (“Teamsters”). See Note 17 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K for additional information about concentration of labor subject to collective bargaining agreements.

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Recruiting, Training, Development, and Retention

Recruiting. We are committed to recruiting a workforce that reflects people from all cultures and segments of the population based on ability. Our initiatives include: (i) identifying and recruiting diverse talent, including military veterans; (ii) fostering relationships with universities, employment agencies, and professional groups that work with more diverse populations; and (iii) leveraging inclusive job-posting sites. We have a well-established talent review process that includes operations and functional leaders that are key in the early identification of high performing and high potential employees. We also track and review the diverse backgrounds of job applicants and new hires to evaluate our efforts to continue to increase the diversity of our organization. The Sustainability Committee of our board oversees, among other things, the succession planning for our executive officers and the leadership, progression, and development of key employees.

Training, Development, and Retention. We are committed to the development of our employees through a broad mix of internal and external program resources incorporating on-the-job training and development through the Kaiser Leadership Program (“KLP”), the Front Line Leader Development Program (“FLLDP”), the Kaiser Leader of Leaders Program (“KLLP”), Kaiser University, the Tuition Assistance Program, and the Metallurgy Excellence and Technical Strength Program. We continue to expand our talent management initiatives to pursue the significant long-term potential for our continued success. Our success is dependent on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our current and future leaders and employees.

The KLP is a full year program that accelerates the readiness of key talent and combines personalized leadership development and Kaiser-management system focused curriculum with a unique opportunity to build relationships with an internal network of leaders across locations and functions. The mission of the KLP is to strengthen performance, develop bench strength, and accelerate the readiness of key talent across our company. The program blends classroom, online modules and live web events using a cohort model to deliver a flexible, convenient learning environment.

The FLLDP is a six-month program that strengthens organizational performance through ethical, effective, and sustaining tactical leadership for both new and experienced frontline supervisors. The program uses a cohort model to encourage collaboration and team-building and to ensure accountability, facilitated group discussions, and effective best practice sharing.

The KLLP provides a professional development curriculum, mentorship, and networking opportunities designed to support leaders in developing vital leadership skills and business insight, all grounded in Kaiser Aluminum’s corporate values. Similar to the KLP, the KLLP uses in-person events, program meetings, self-directed learning and assignments, mentoring meetings, and cohort collective meetings.

Kaiser University is our web-based learning and development platform offering a catalog of thousands of on-demand courses to employees across a broad range of topics including compliance, maintenance, health and safety, Lean Six Sigma, communication skills, business skills, computer skills, cybersecurity, discrimination and harassment prevention, and our processes and policies.

The Tuition Assistance Program provides tuition reimbursement for salaried employees and certain represented employees as stipulated by the collective bargaining agreement. The mission of this program is to support our workforce in completing a degree that benefits both our employees and our company.

The Metallurgy Excellence and Technical Strength Program provides professional development for our talented metallurgical professionals in order to facilitate their ability to develop and implement process control systems and identify new technologies that can benefit the company. This program provides mentorship opportunities with company leaders and experts as well as participation in career enhancing training to ensure our competitive advantage.

Rewards

All our employees, including hourly and salaried employees at our production facilities, participate in short-term incentive compensation plans, which are based on attainment of performance metrics that drive and support our “Best in Class” commitment. We also provide stock-based compensation to executive officers, members of senior management throughout the company, and other key employees, as well as a deferred compensation plan for certain employees. All our U.S. employees have access to 401(k) savings plans, depending on the terms of their employment, and salaried employees at our London, Ontario facility have access to a defined benefit pension plan with annual contributions based on each salaried employee’s age and years of service. Through the collective bargaining process, we contribute to four multiemployer pension plans under the terms of certain collective bargaining agreements for a majority of our union-represented employees. Certain union employees at Warrick participate in a defined benefit pension plan, as well as an OPEB plan offering medical and life insurance benefits. In addition, certain hourly and salaried employees are also able to receive defined postretirement health and welfare benefits through VEBAs.