ArcelorMittal (‘the Company’), the world’s leading steel and mining company, has today published its 2019 integrated annual review, ‘Inventing smarter steels for a better world’. The review, which can be accessed at https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/corporate-library/reporting-hub/integrated-annual-review-2019, underpins the Company’s commitment to transparent reporting. It has been produced in-line with the International Integrated Reporting Council’s framework and demonstrates the Company’s approach to ensuring it brings long-term, sustainable value to its broad stakeholder base.

The review provides an overview of the progress the Company made in 2019 and outlines how it is addressing its challenges. Specifically, the review details how ArcelorMittal performed last year across four distinct areas, namely: health and safety performance; delivering financial value; innovating smarter steels and solutions; and driving environmental and social sustainability.

Commenting, Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman and CEO, ArcelorMittal, said:

“I am fundamentally optimistic about the long-term outlook for steel because, as the world’s population further increases and living standards continue to improve for everyone, demand for materials will also increase. Our product is also an integral component in much of the infrastructure that will support a net zero carbon economy, including wind and solar farms, electric vehicles and low-carbon buildings. But we also need to work to significantly reduce our direct carbon footprint. Beyond the challenge of trialling and scaling up potential technologies, the biggest hurdle will be the significantly higher costs which cannot be supported by the profitability of the industry alone. This is why policy intervention is so critical, both to provide access to finance as well as to ensure a level playing field.

“As steelmaking develops, it is important to also develop the skills of our employees and to ensure we can retain and attract the people we need for continued success. We have already strengthened our digitalisation teams and are also boosting our research and development teams with 3D printing experts as we explore the potential for printing steel from steel powders. We believe the steel industry offers interesting and complex challenges, and ArcelorMittal an entrepreneurial, global environment in which to grow and prosper.

“Undoubtedly there will be significant COVID-19 repercussions for some time to come. But I do expect the fundamentals to reassert themselves, for the world to continue with its development, to continue to grow, to continue to want to give a better quality of life to more people, and to continue to prioritise sustainability. There will be challenges, as there are always challenges, but steel has a critical role to play in the world of the future as it has in the world of the past. And I am sure ArcelorMittal, as the world’s leading and only global steel company, will continue to be a material supplier of choice, inventing smarter steels for the better world we all hope to see.”

Key highlights of ArcelorMittal’s sustainable development approach and progress discussed in the review include:

• The steps the Company is taking to address its carbon challenge, encapsulated in our commitment to supporting the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and our ambition to significantly reduce emissions across the group, including a 30% reduction in carbon emissions in Europe by 2030, and carbon neutrality in Europe by 2050.
  
  
• An overview of the first full year of Steligence®, our radical new concept for the use of steel in construction. This facilitates the next generation of high-performance buildings and sustainable construction techniques. It is already proving highly successful, having delivered 16 million m2 of building and nearly 500,000 tonnes of steel so far.
  
  
• The importance the Company places on R&D, insight into how our $301 million R&D budget was allocated in 2019 and a spotlight on our work with Canoo to create a disruptive new vehicle for a world in which transportation is becoming increasingly electric, shared and autonomous.
  
  
• How, in 2019, we avoided the emission of more than 11 million tonnes CO2 in the cement industry through the sale of 15 million tonnes of blast furnace slag for use as cement – 19% more than in 2018. In 2019, our absolute CO2e footprint for our steel and mining operations saw a 4% decrease against 2018, and for our steel operations, a 4.5% decrease.
  
  
• We are reducing our direct emissions from energy consumption. In 2019, 44% of our electricity was generated from renewable sources and through onsite generation.

• A summary of value creation for stakeholders in 2019, in the Company’s value creation model. Examples include:
  • $72.2 billion economic contribution.
  • $4.5 billion total tax contribution.
  • $30.3 million total community investment spend.
  • Allocated a total of $711 million to 25 projects with energy and/or carbon benefits.
  • Approved a total of 38 projects with environmental benefits totaling $692 million.
  • 69 inventions newly protected and 42 sustainable products and solutions launched, 11 of which accelerate sustainable lifestyles and 31 of which support sustainable construction, infrastructure and energy generation.