ArcelorMittal consistently fails to provide its shareholders with credible climate commitments or concrete decarbonization measures. Its approach includes clinging to coal-based production, likely lowering its already insufficient climate commitments, pursuing so-called decarbonization options that actually entrench fossil fuel use, stalling key decarbonization projects, and failing to commit adequate resources to its transition. Ahead of ArcelorMittal’s Annual General Meeting on May 6, Reclaim Finance is urging shareholders to step up their climate engagement and vote against the company’s continued reliance on coal and its lack of meaningful progress toward a credible transition to cleaner production technologies.
ArcelorMittal, among the world’s largest steelmakers, ranks as one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions globally. As such, several investors have engaged with the company through the Climate Action 100+ initiative. Some shareholders are also engaging the company through other actions, including bilateral dialogue and private letters. In previous years, investors such as Nordea Asset Management, Aegon Asset Management and the French Sustainable Investment Forum have sent ArcelorMittal several climate-related requests. (1) Yet, the company keeps failing to provide adequate responses, including for instance the much-anticipated update of its Climate Action Report, the last version of which dates back to 2021. Investors have been patient enough. It is now time for investors to escalate their engagement.
Continuously failing to deliver on climate
ArcelorMittal has kept showing signs of its climate inaction to its investors. Not only does it still fail to provide a clear commitment to phase out coal in its operations, its promises to deploy cleaner alternatives are persistently delayed. ArcelorMittal has yet to make a single final investment decision on any of the five large-scale direct reduced iron (DRI) projects it announced earlier this decade in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain to replace coal-based blast furnaces. The company has also made significant cuts for its decarbonization projects, with only US$0.3-0.4 billion out of the US$4.5-5 billion of planned capital expenditures in 2025 to be spent on decarbonization projects. (2) ArcelorMittal’s CAPEX investment rates in decarbonization projects are also far below the average of publicly listed European firms in key energy transition sectors. (3)
Furthermore, despite boasting a 50% cut in absolute emissions, ArcelorMittal’s climate progress is largely smoke and mirrors. (4) Its emissions intensity has barely budged and remains above the industry average. The drop is in fact mainly due to shrinking operations, not cleaner production. (5) Investors should be wary of headline claims that mask a lack of real transition.
In its 2024 Sustainability Report, (6) – published less than three weeks ahead of its AGM – ArcelorMittal seems to be openly backtracking on its climate commitments, hiding behind claims that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and green hydrogen DRI will not be economically viable before 2030 – an argument that conveniently delays action while promoting technologies like CCS that only serve to prolong coal dependency. The company is using this as a justification to walk back its 2030 carbon intensity targets. (7) It now intends to revise its climate goals only once the policy environment becomes more favorable. This deliberate slowdown signals a troubling message to the broader industry – that climate ambition can be shelved when inconvenient – underscoring the urgent need for investors to hold ArcelorMittal accountable and ensure that decarbonization is a top priority.
Opposing ArcelorMittal’s climate inaction in 2025 strategic routine votes
Given ArcelorMittal’s lack of progress and delays on climate action, as well as its continued reliance on fossil fuels—and the limited success of investor engagement to date—Reclaim Finance is calling on the company’s shareholders to use the 2025 AGM as a key opportunity to escalate their engagement. Investors should continue their current actions by asking written and oral questions about the company’s coal-related projects and its projects related to alternative sustainable technologies. They should also increase pressure on the company by integrating climate in their votes on strategic management-proposed resolutions.
Voting at Annual General Meetings is an important tool for shareholders, as it can influence the company’s strategy and governance and send a strong signal to the board and management. Climate issues are also closely related to the strategic considerations of high-emitting companies, including ArcelorMittal. These issues must therefore be integrated into key resolutions, especially those relating to the re-election of directors, the discharge of the board of directors, and the remuneration of top executives and directors. Since the board of directors and executive management are responsible for defining and implementing the company’s strategy, they must be held accountable for any climate-wrecking plans based on fossil fuels, and must be sanctioned for this in votes.
ArcelorMittal is dragging its feet on climate, offering empty promises instead of the urgent action required to confront the climate crisis. It is high time climate action becomes a central topic at the company’s 2025 AGM. Investors must urgently factor climate considerations into their votes on key resolutions, by sanctioning its continued reliance on coal and the ongoing delays in adopting cleaner technologies.
