Brian Aranha, Executive Vice-President of ArcelorMittal, accepts this year's Steelie Award; Credit: ArcelorMittal

The World Steel Association has awarded the Luxembourg multinational steel manufacturing company ArcelorMittal a Steelie Award for sustainability excellence for the third consecutive year.

Announced at the World Steel Association’s annual dinner in Monterrey, Mexico, the award distinguishes the company’s industry leadership on sustainability amid the growing pressure steel companies are facing to outline their approach to reducing carbon emissions.

The award was given in recognition of the company’s publication of the steel sector’s first "Climate Action" report in May 2019. The report set out the three pathways the company believes can lead to deep decarbonisation of steelmaking, the various low-emissions technologies the company is trialling and the public policy required to make low-emissions steel a reality. It also confirms ArcelorMittal’s commitments to the objectives of the Paris Agreement and outlines the company’s ambition to significantly reduce emissions across the group, including reaching carbon neutrality in Europe by 2050.

Accepting the Steelie Award, Brian Aranha, Executive Vice-President, Head of Strategy, CTO, R&D, CCM, global automotive, communications and corporate responsibility, said: "We are immensely proud of the forward-thinking resource our people have put together to build stakeholder understanding of what a transition to a low-carbon steel industry means in practice. Although the report does not have all the answers, it is prompting some very important conversations with our stakeholders across the steel industry and beyond. Having these conversations will be essential to develop the collaborative approach the world needs to take if we are to unlock the full potential of the steel industry’s efforts to decarbonise. This includes working with governments around the world to develop consistent and supportive policy frameworks to enable our industry to succeed in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement".