Safety, Health and Wellness 

Safety comes first: the wellbeing of our workforce and contractors is our number one priority. A strong health and safety culture in instilled at every level of the company and is supported by a robust set of safety standards. The company is committed to continuous safety improvement to reach its goal of zero fatalities and injuries. In meeting this mandate, the company is guided by the Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) policy which is implemented at board, Exco, business unit, division, department and shift level and which is governed by the SHE Committee of the Board.

Occupational health and hygiene are governed by the company's SHE policy and all issues relating to this area are overseen by the SHE Committee of the Board. When employees and contractors fall ill as a result of occupational hazards, the productivity of the entire company suffers, but apart from this clear business case, ArcelorMittal South Africa recognises both its legal and moral responsibility to protect the health of its workers. The company is committed to identifying, managing and eliminating any undesirable impacts that its operations may have on the health of employees, contractors and any other stakeholders on our premises.

Our values commit us to pursuing zero harm towards people and planet. The importance we attach to workplace safety and our environmental impacts is borne out by the weighting we attach to the key performance indicators listed on this page.

In 2023, we overhauled our occupational safety systems with a reinvigorated safety drive that prioritised all levels of the workforce and contractor employees taking responsibility for their own safety and that of their colleagues.

At the same time, research showed that our overall safety culture was improving, albeit with considerable room for improvement.

A new (from this year) single safety system called WorkSafe unifies our various safety protocols and provides much greater management control over safety systems and hazards.

Managing our environmental impact

As a corporate citizen concerned about the welfare and sustainability of the environment, ArcelorMittal South Africa is committed to managing the impact of its operations on the natural world. The company recognises that the steelmaking process and its waste and by-products have many potentially harmful effects, which include the emission of CO2 gases as a result of the considerable carbon used to manufacture steel, particulate and other air emissions such as SO2, the disposal of slags and other waste, water consumption, pollution and wastage, and energy consumption. The company’s Environmental Policy governs the responsible management of these environmental risks, providing a framework for the setting of objectives and targets within the group.

In 2023, we continued to spend elevated amounts on our drive to achieve zero environmental harm.

Environmental capital expenditure in the year was R269 million.

Large capital-expenditure items included:

• Upgrading the coke gas-cleaning facility in Vanderbijlpark 
• Restoring the Newcastle coke oven batteries
• Newcastle stormwater upgrades 
• Extending a disposal site for brine salts in Saldanha 
• Relining the oxygen steelmaking slag cooling dam in Vanderbijlpark to prevent leachate water contaminating groundwater 
• Relining Newcastle’s basic oxygen furnace dams. This undertaking was challenged by the condition of weathered sludge underneath the four dams in question being worse than previously realised; this challenge was successfully addressed in the year.