It’s exciting to see more companies issuing integrated reports in the U.S. ArcelorMittal is the latest to join this trend. And, is the norm in this movement, they’ve designed their own framework and approach.
ArcelorMittal describes itself as the ” world’s largest steel and mining company.” They issue annual and sustainability reports globally. The report reviewed here is an integrated report just for the U.S. that is found in the sustainability section, not their investor section, of their website. Having said that, their sustainability efforts are front and center on their site’s navigation. This differs from many other U.S. companies who bury their sustainability reports in separate sections far away from their investor sections:
The introduction to the report explains:
In the United States, ArcelorMittal is reporting on our corporate responsibility and sustainability outcomes for the seventh time. This year, we take a major step toward integrated thinking and reporting in the U.S. This means all levels of the ArcelorMittal business are working to incorporate sustainability – both in the traditional and financial sense and into annual strategic planning processes and discussions. This integrated approach ensures ArcelorMittal does what is right – for our business, our people and our planet.
The basic summary of the report contents is as follows:
| Title | United States Integrated Report |
| Theme | transformingtomorrow |
| Report Type | Supplement to Annual Report, located on sustainability section of U.S. website |
| Contents | Big Picture, Our Business, Our Strategy, Our Outcomes |
| Number of Pages | 150 |
| Value Creation | Narrative, Graphic, Metrics |
| Value Distribution | Narrative, Graphics, Metrics |
| Stakeholder | Narrative, Graphics, Metrics |
| Standards | GRI, SASB compliance, IIRC alignment |
| Assurance | None mentioned |
The Capitals
This report does not make extensive use of the integrated reporting concept of the six key categories of capital. But it does summarize how each is important to their strategy:
The major gap I see here is one that I see with lots of reports. Intellectual Capital is shown as being relevant to just a couple strategic objectives, while it is actually probably as relevant as its financial capital. (This probably has to do with differing definitions of IC)
Outcomes
Rather than the capitals, the core organizing principle of the majority of the content is ten strategic outcomes. This is interesting as the IIRC framework talks about outcomes and outputs. I haven’t seen a presentation that so strongly aligns around the outcomes:
There’s also a great graphic of these 10 outcomes that wouldn’t fit here. For each outcome, the report features:
- Why is it Important to us?
- The commercial imperative (“What kind of challenges do we face? What do we need to do? What is the potential to create value?”)
- Details about their activities
- Case study
There is also a chart that shows how all their sustainability and strategy are linked:
Finally, there is an extensive chart with five years of data (this is the first line of the chart):
This table reminds me of Southwest’s approach. But it’s missing the heavy-duty financial data in GE’s recent report.
Again, it is not organized by the capitals by key types of resources:
- People
- Resources
- Air, Land and Water
- Energy
- Supply Chain
- Community
- Impact Measurement
- Good Governance
These categories correspond to human, natural and part of relationship capital. But they do not address financial, fixed or digital.
Phew. I know I shared a lot. But there is a lot here and for me, creating this short version is a great way to begin to compare and contrast different companies’ approaches. I’ll keep sharing these. I’d love to hear if you have suggestions on how to classify these reports.
ArcelorMittal’s report was one of three featured in our latest Smarter-Companies Brief entitled Systems Thinking Using a Multi-Capital Model:Driving profits and prosperity with integrated reporting and thinking.
