ARCELORMITTAL South Africa (Amsa) has been caught up in a global protest action due to allegations of environmental pollution and degradation by the international steel giant, which is accused of lacking transparency and dragging its feet to attain standard carbon emission reduction targets.
Amsa is a large steel manufacturer in South Africa that has threatened to close some of its operations owing to infrastructure inefficiencies to do with electricity, rail and ports.
While it has battled a worsening operating environment, Amsa has now found itself in the cross waves of a global protest action for environmental harm at some of its South African operations.
The Fair Steel Coalition, representing affected communities from areas where Amsa has steel manufacturing operations in South Africa, Liberia and elsewhere, will be staging protests at the local operations of the Luxembourg-headquartered company.
From South Africa’s Vaal, affected communities and families argue that they have to contend with daily doses of environmental pollution from the Vaal Triangle.
“ArcelorMittal must be held to account for environmental, social and climate impacts in South Africa, especially since the group owns 66% of the local subsidiary,” said Samson Mokoena from the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance yesterday.
“For too long, communities have borne the costs of air, water and soil pollution.”
Amsa is the biggest steel manufacturer in Africa. In 2023, before curtailing production as a result of South African economic hurdles, Amsa produced 1.4 million tons of crude steel.
The protests against Amsa are happening in Luxembourg over the next few days, and will culminate in a Steel for People and Planet Stakeholder Meeting on April 29, a day before the global steel giant’s annual general meeting.
“On April 29, the Fair Steel Coalition will speak at the Steel for People and Planet Stakeholder Meeting, a live event to challenge steel conglomerate ArcelorMittal to clean up its global business and bring it into line with human rights standards and responsible climate action,” said the coalition, which includes South African environmental activists.
According to Mokoena, South Africans in the Vaal Triangle, where Amsa operates the Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging facilities, are paying the price for the company’s reckless regard for the environment in its quest for higher production.
“To make steel for the world, we have paid with our health, our well-being and the destruction of land to which we belong,” he said.
“ArcelorMittal must commit to ensuring a transition away from coal-based steel-making and ensure that the historical environmental harms are addressed swiftly.”
Amsa had not responded to a request for comment from Business Report by end of business yesterday.
However, Amsa’s international parent company, ArcelorMittal, said in its annual report for 2023 that it was “committed to leading the industry’s efforts” to decarbonise.
It had thus “set a group target of reducing its CO2 emissions intensity by 25% by 2030”.
The Fair Steel Alliance said it was currently “unclear how exactly the company plans to achieve this” or why “it is unable to act at a pace and scale sufficient enough to reduce carbon emissions in tandem” with its commitments.
Amsa nonetheless insisted that it was “working to transform its existing facilities and steel-making production to create more efficient technologies to reduce air pollution, make more efficient use of the water and develop new steel-making routes to be carbon neutral and near zero” emissions.
Community members in Vaal charge that Amsa’s Vanderbijlpark steel plant “belches out a daily dose of hydrogen sulphide”, well over what national air quality standards should permit.
“Their (Vaal communities) concerns include lack of full transparency around pollution data and implementation of the company’s rehabilitation and remediation plans,” the Fair Steel Alliance added.
South African authorities were also being held liable for the environmental pollution in the Vaal Triangle by Amsa.
It has emerged that the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) negotiated a master plan with Amsa to identify environmental management improvements after initial complaints from the community.
However, this had “closed the door on community involvement in addressing pollution”, while the result from this was a “negotiated non-compliance as small changes” were made.
BUSINESS REPORT