Centre for Environmental Rights – Advancing Environmental Rights in South Africa

Driving through Vanderbijlpark, especially on cold wintery mornings, you have an overwhelming sense that the environment, the rusty veld, the very air is deeply depressed and stifled. Most likely due to decades of violent pollution of land, air and soil from local industrial emitters, including those from steelmaker ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA). The economic landscape does not fare much better, and it seems that every day, people are struggling and striving in the shadow of the steel behemoth.

During some of these drives with my colleague and friend, Samson Mokoena, he would tell me about the history of Vanderbijlpark, so named after industrialist, scientist and engineer Hendrik Van der Bijl. A town which was carefully planned and engineered around efficiencies and industrial use, with large “flow through” circles to easily regulate traffic and roads named after renowned scientists and innovators like Marie Curie, Marconi and Einstein. Planned and designed for and by industry, there was clearly a great and bold industrial vision underpinned by science and engineering. Often, I thought that Samson spoke with a little pride about the infrastructure, the planning, and the grand immensity of a vision which could dream up and build such a place.

Recognizing, of course, that while industry was able to thrive – people and the environment suffered immense harm, including health issues due to air pollution caused by the burning of coal for industrial use. Moreover, such a vision of industrialisation, premised on the exploitation of natural and human resources, did not distribute wealth equally.

Distilled from these conversations were layers of disillusionment; nostalgia for an equitable dream unrealised and an angry hope for what could be possible if civil society continued to fight for environmental and climate justice in the Vaal.

Samson was not able to continue this fight. Having lived with air pollution in the Vaal for all his life, he passed away, at the age of 47, from pneumonia on 28 June 2024. The loss to the local and global environmental and climate justice movement is immeasurable. Samson founded the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) and worked for decades to challenge ArcelorMittal’s impact on the Vaal. His father worked for the company (then known as ISCOR) and his family, together with other families, were moved to land optimistically purchased at the dawn of democracy. The land was contaminated by AMSA and posed a threat to the health of people, animals and the environment. His fight for justice therefore started with seeking justice for his own family and extended into a wider local and global family that was so privileged to learn from his hard-fought experience in fighting for corporate accountability and transparency. His fight took him from Vanderbijlpark to ArcelorMittal’s headquarters in Luxembourg and then to many parts of the globe as he shared his story and experience.

In 2023, he co-founded the Fair Steel Coalition, which comprises activists working to challenge the steel industry in South Africa, Mexico, Liberia and Brazil. The Fair Steel Coalition is a testament to the shared struggles of peoples around the world, all working towards holding steel companies such as ArcelorMittal and Ternium, responsible for their negative social, environmental and climate impacts – seeking a rapid response to these harms. Earlier this year, during a People and Planet AGM held ahead of the ArcelorMittal Global AGM, Samson said that,

“I am calling on the ArcelorMittal Group to commit to engaging with Fair Steel Coalition in regard to drafting and finalising a company owned Just Transition Plan, in order to support its decarbonisation efforts in a manner which does not leave communities and workers behind and which ensures that historical pollution is addressed in a meaningful manner, while ensuring sustainability of the company, people and the planet. 

I am also calling on ArcelorMittal to see the harms which have been caused by its steelmaking and face up to the decades of harm which has been caused – to not defend and delay – but take a progressive and constructive approach to realising social, climate and environmental justice for fence line communities around the world.”

He had a vision of a Just Steel Transition, one which encompasses a grand and clearly articulated strategy, underpinned by prevailing climate science and major technological developments in the production and use of green hydrogen for iron and steel making processes, including improved battery and electrolyser capacity. Starting with the Saldanha Bay Plant, with rail access to iron ore, immense renewable energy potential and easy port access, AMSA could be a global first mover in the production and export of green primary iron. Both finance from the ArcelorMittal Group and other concessional finance could form part of the funding for a Just Steel Transition Plan, one which also supports social and environmental protections for fenceline communities, in accordance with the principles of restorative, distributive and procedural justice – including for communities in Vanderbijlpark.

This plan recognizes AMSA as an important part of the South African economy, providing many direct and indirect jobs within the steel value chain. It also acknowledges the immense financial risks associated with local and regional carbon taxes aimed at advancing significant changes in the manufacturing of carbon-intensive products. Importantly, such a plan would recognize that consumers of steel products, particularly within the automotive value chain, are increasingly questioning and challenging coal-based steelmaking, and demanding urgent action towards more sustainable and carbon-free production methods.

Therefore, recognizing the immense opportunity for AMSA to become a first mover in the production of green primary iron, secure off-takers across multiple jurisdictions, and create value and additional jobs for the local economy, AMSA could lead efforts to address a global challenge within the ArcelorMittal Group. This is especially relevant as EU-based steel plants are increasingly unable to meet their green steel commitments within the Group’s overall climate action plan. With the right ambition, urgency, financing and vision, AMSA could not only set a global standard for a Just Steel Transition but also catalyse real urgency within the sector to shift away from coal and embrace new technologies. Solutions may lie in optimizing the global steel value chain, for example by leveraging ArcelorMittal’s plants in South Africa and Brazil, which have the right conditions for the production of green primary iron, and ensuring that those beneficiated products supply its European steel plants, enabling the production of green steel there.

Where once there was a vision for industrial steel-making in the Vaal for the benefit of a few, now there is a new vision for a Just Steel Transition that is for the many, co-led by ArcelorMittal, both locally and globally. Decades of environmental and social injustice could be addressed while allowing AMSA to lead the world on decarbonisation efforts.

Perhaps, as a part of restorative justice and the importance of memory in reconciliation with our unjust past and present, new streets could be named after our local climate scientists; holders of indigenous knowledge; human rights defenders like Mam Fikile Ntshangase who was killed for her opposition to coal mining in Kwa-Zulu Natal and Samson Mokoena, who lived and died fighting for justice in the Vaal.

For people living in the Vaal. For all people. For Planet. For Samson