“Steel has an important role to play in the transition to circular, low-carbon world. As the world’s leading steelmaker, we understand that true leadership carries deep responsibility. As our 2021 integrated annual review shows, this responsibility has taken many forms over the past year: 

“Our responsibility towards our 26,000 colleagues who work at ArcelorMittal’s plant in Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine, where we have given financial support, matched employee donations and provided accommodation to those who have fled the country.

“Our responsibility to the health and safety of our 158,000 employees. After extremely disappointing safety results in 2021, we have taken action to strengthen safety culture across the whole business. I have invested a considerable amount of time in understanding why we can achieve excellent safety results at some plants but not others. We have now completed a comprehensive review of our efforts to improve performance and have started 2022 with a refreshed company-wide commitment to put this into action across our entire operations. We have also taken steps to improve diversity and inclusion across ArcelorMittal and made a commitment to double the number of women in senior leadership roles to 25% by 2030.

“Our responsibility to the environment, including the need to decarbonise our business. Our ambition is to lead the decarbonisation of the steel industry and, in 2021, we announced new CO2e reduction targets and $5.6 billion worth of decarbonisation projects in Canada, Spain, Belgium and France.

“Our responsibility towards the communities in which we operate and to ensuring a ‘Just Transition’ to a lower carbon economy. We are committed to creating economic and social value through employment, procurement, taxation and sustainable development initiatives.

“Finally, we have a responsibility to grow our business and generate sustainable returns for our investors. To achieve this, we are making investments that deliver high returns, improve our product portfolio, capture growth in emerging economies and align with our 2050 net zero targets. These projects – and our strong financial results in 2021 – support consistent returns to our shareholders.

“ArcelorMittal is a stronger company today than at any point in its history. We have a unique mix of assets in both developed and emerging markets, established plans to continue growing our business, and the financial resources, people and technology expertise required to be successful – and to lead our industry – for decades to come.”

“Our integrated annual review aims to give all of our stakeholders a clear understanding of how ArcelorMittal is managing its business in an integrated way to achieve our purpose of providing smarter steels for people and planet.

“With global steel demand expected to increase from 1.9 billion tonnes today to 2.6 billion tonnes by 2050, ArcelorMittal has a vital role to play in creating sustainable and high-quality steels to meet this growth. This includes providing the material needed by emerging economies as they develop and for the construction of the clean energy systems required for a net zero future.

“After 15 years as the world’s leading steel company, we understand that our ability to retain this leadership position will depend not only on our financial performance but also our social and environmental performance – in particular our ability to decarbonise. We made good progress in this regard in 2021, including setting new 2030 targets for the group and announcing important decarbonisation projects in Europe and Canada.

“Ultimately it is our people that drive our success. The team is always more powerful than the individual and what we have achieved together is testament to the knowledge, experience, energy and enthusiasm of our people – working hard every day to produce smarter steels for people and planet.”