Reflecting on 2019, ArcelorMittal faced extraordinary successes and challenges within our United States operations. This year is no different. COVID-19 and the associated economic downturn has impacted all areas of our business in unprecedented ways. In times like these, corporate sustainability programs are not only more critical than ever, but are also tested. Distinctions are made between companies that choose open dialogue and continuous improvement over silence and complacency. This is especially true of companies that have a large environmental and social footprint.
As the North American sustainability leaders for the world’s largest steel and mining corporation, we take this call to action very seriously. Our impact matters and as a result, we have prioritized stakeholder engagement in all our efforts. We are committed to ensuring collaboration and transparent communication when engaging our people, our communities and our operations in ArcelorMittal’s sustainability initiatives.
Engaging our people through communication and policy
We cannot address our sustainability program and stakeholder engagement initiatives of 2019 without speaking to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our people in 2020. Our employees are our most important stakeholders, and their health and well-being have been our unequivocal priority during the pandemic.
Given our status as an essential business, ArcelorMittal continued to operate as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in the United States. We have taken necessary precautions to protect the health of our employees, contractors, vendors and customers to ensure the continuity and sustainability of our business and communities. ArcelorMittal Coronavirus Task Forces were established at the global, segment and national levels. These groups have been closely monitoring official government and health guidance since the beginning of the pandemic. Policies and procedures were implemented to protect our essential workers, including enhanced sanitizing, social distancing and COVID-19 exposure mitigation protocols. During this time, employees who could work from home transitioned to working from home. To ensure our workforce is informed, we enhanced our engagement and communication channels, including a dedicated employee COVID-19 email address, regular leadership updates, weekly emails designed to maintain connectedness and share resources, and an internal website dedicated to COVID-19 protocol and information.
Engaging our operations in sustainability strategy
Collaboration and engagement are also critical to advancing sustainability within our operations. Globally, we launched our first Climate Action Report, becoming the first steel company to detail our main pathways toward low-emissions steelmaking to our stakeholders. A global, science-based carbon target for ArcelorMittal will be released in 2020.
Steel as a material is inherently sustainable due to its continuous recyclability. This was reinforced in our U.S. operations in 2019, with 32% of each ton of steel produced by ArcelorMittal in the U.S. being composed of recycled scrap steel. We also continued our dedication to energy efficiency, implementing 27 projects with an energy savings of more than $19.8 million, the equivalent of powering 14,400 homes for a year.
We advanced conservation programming on our company-owned land, receiving a conservation certification for our fourth U.S.-based site from Wildlife Habitat Council. Another sustainability and stakeholder-focused certification, the ResponsibleSteel initiative, was pre-audited at our AM/NS Calvert and Burns Harbor facilities.
We welcomed two mining operations under ArcelorMittal USA management in 2019, affording us the opportunity to extend our sustainability activities in the United States. Hibbing Taconite Company, a joint venture producer of iron ore pellets in Minnesota, and ArcelorMittal Princeton, a coal mine in West Virginia, are implementing new sustainability and stakeholder engagement initiatives as part of their onboarding.
Engaging our communities with transparency
To maintain our license to operate, community stakeholder engagement is paramount. In the United States, we invested $6.5 million in our local communities, 35% of which was dedicated to on-the-ground environmental conservation and restoration projects with nonprofit stakeholders.
This includes our leadership in the Sustain Our Great Lakes initiative, a public-private partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and several government agencies. Since 2006, the program has awarded 337 grants, which have resulted in a total conservation investment of more than $174.5 million in the region. In addition to this program, we continued to advance collaborative conservation engagement through programs such as the Chi-Cal Rivers Fund, the Southeast Michigan Resilience Fund and the Calumet Land Conservation Partnership.
Our prioritization of stakeholder engagement was put to the test in 2019 when ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor facility in Indiana experienced a failure at a pump station, resulting in our reporting water permit exceedances, which in turn generated significant stakeholder concern. ArcelorMittal’s priority was to take responsibility, address the noncompliance and communicate with our stakeholders. Our teams worked collaboratively to communicate with government officials, nonprofit partners and local residents. Our community inquiry mechanisms provided an outlet for these stakeholders to express their concerns and ask questions. No matter how difficult, we are committed to constructive dialogue with stakeholders in both good and challenging times.
Sustainability is a journey and we must take the long view in measuring our true impact. We are dedicated to moving forward on this path to build a sustainable future for both ArcelorMittal and the communities where we operate. In 2020, our focus is centered on continual improvement in the effective engagement of our people, operations and our communities in our sustainability initiatives.
It is in this spirit that we invite you to read ArcelorMittal’s 2019 United States Integrated Report. As a valued stakeholder, we encourage you to communicate with us at USACR@arcelormittal.com with questions about our report or sustainability work in the U.S.
