Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Vale demonstrates policy engagement that is partially aligned with policy pathways aiming to deliver the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, exhibiting active engagement. The company demonstrates positive top-line messaging on climate action and supports carbon pricing policies, as well as the role of critical minerals in the energy transition.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Vale demonstrates positive top-line messaging on climate policy. In its corporate website, accessed in July 2025, Vale supported the mitigation of climate change through land-use techniques. In a September 2024 Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) joint letter, the company recognized the need for urgent climate action, while calling for more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in alignment with the 1.5ºC target of the Paris Agreement. The company also supported climate neutrality by 2050 in Canada in its July 2024 Pre Federal 2025 Budget Consultation Response.
Engagement with Climate-related Regulations: Vale’s engagement with climate-related policy is broadly positive. In its 2024 CDP response, the company supported emissions trading through the Brazilian Regulated Carbon Market. In the same response, the company also supported the International Maritime Organization's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. In its 2023 CDP response, the company supported both federal and state-level carbon pricing policies in Canada, such as the Federal Backstop Program and Newfoundland and Labrador’s GHG Act on carbon pricing.
While the company has shown support for the protection of carbon sinks within its own operations, it has not demonstrated clear support for the need for policy to support this. For example, in a January 2024 ICMM press release on nature preservation in the mining sector, Vale’s former CEO Eduardo Bartolomeo supported operational initiatives on nature-based climate change mitigation without clarifying support for policy to achieve this.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Vale appears to broadly support the transition to a low-carbon energy mix in Canada and Brazil, demonstrating consistent support for critical minerals for the energy transition. For example, in its July 2024 Canada Pre Federal 2025 Budget Consultation Response, Vale called for investment tax credits to include intangible mine development-related costs to expand critical mineral production. The company also supported a just transition towards the use of critical minerals in energy transition technologies in its 2023 Integrated Report, published in April 2024.
CEO Gustavo Pimenta supported the use of hydrogen produced from renewable energy to accelerate the transition of hard-to-abate sectors at the World Economic Forum, as reported by Poder360 in January 2025. However, it is unclear if the company's leadership supports an energy transition that is in line with IPCC guidelines. In December 2024, according to a Reuters news article, Pimenta highlighted the financial challenges in decarbonizing the steel industry, stating that the transition will take longer than expected.
Industry Association Governance: Vale disclosed a complete list of industry association memberships in its 2024 Integrated Report, published in April 2025. However, this disclosure has no further details of the nature of Vale’s membership to each association or their climate policy positions. The company also does not appear to have completed a review of its industry associations and their positions on climate change policy. Vale is on the board of the Mining Association of Canada, which has both positive and negative engagement on climate change policy, and is a member of its Energy, Climate Change and Environment Committees. Vale is an active member of the climate working group of the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry (CNI), which engages negatively with key climate regulations in the EU and Brazil.
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 2025.