Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Baowu Steel has engaged with climate policies with a mix of positive and negative positions. It stated top-line support for the Paris Agreement, limiting global warming to below 2°C, China’s carbon peak and neutrality targets, as well as the carbon emission standards. However, its engagement with the energy transition—supporting both green hydrogen and continued use of coal and fossil gas—seems only partially aligned with IPCC guidelines for limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Baowu Steel has communicated top-line support for climate policy. In its 2022 Green and Low-Carbon Development Report, published in August 2023, the company appeared to support the Paris Agreement. In the same report, it appeared to be supportive of China’s carbon peak and neutrality targets. In its 2022 Sustainability Report, published in April 2023, Baosteel, a subsidiary of Baowu Steel, appeared to support achieving carbon neutrality targets globally.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Baowu Steel appears to have limited engagement with specific climate policies, such as global emission standards. In a April 2023 blog post, Baowu Center of Research, the company’s research institute, disclosed that it has supported a global low-carbon steel emissions standard at a WTO meeting. In its response to CDP 2023 Climate Change Information Request, Baosteel also disclosed its direct engagement with the WTO on the low-carbon CO2 emission standard for steel products in China, but without details of its position on the standard.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Baowu Steel takes a mix of positive and negative positions regarding the transition away from fossil fuels in the steel sector and in the economy. In its 2022 Green and Low-Carbon Development Report, published in August 2023, Baowu Steel supported the transition from traditional energy sources towards ‘green energy’ to achieve carbon emission reduction. As reported by Shanghai Securities News in December 2022, it supported green hydrogen to decarbonize the steel sector.
However, in its 2022 Green and Low-Carbon Development Report, published in August 2023, Baowu Steel did not support a shift away from traditional blast furnaces, instead, supporting technological improvements to blast furnaces to reduce carbon emissions in steelmaking. In a May 2024 press release, it appeared to support the continued role for coal in China's economy. Its subsidiary, Baosteel, also advocated for further lower prices for fossil gas, without placing clear conditions on the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) or methane abatement measures, as reported by International Financial News in June 2024.
Industry Association Governance: Baowu Steel disclosed some of its industry association memberships on its website. However, the disclosure does not include the associations’ positions on climate policy. InfluenceMap’s database contains evidence that the company's CEO, Chen Derong, is the chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association and an executive committee member of the World Steel Association. Both take mixed positions on the energy transition, though the World Steel Association has become more supportive of steel sector decarbonization in recent years.
Additional Note: China Baowu Group is wholly owned by the government of China. State-owned enterprises likely retain channels of direct engagement with government officials that InfluenceMap is unable to assess, and therefore are not represented in Baowu's engagement intensity metric.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q3 2024.