Nippon Steel risking communities with “zombie” coal plans in Japan and the US
Tokyo, Japan, 23 June 2026 – Nippon Steel is facing growing pressure to abandon costly, “zombie projects” designed to extend the life of coal-based production with no clear path to success, with community and environmental groups picketing its 102nd Annual General Meeting in Tokyo today.
SteelWatch, Friends of the Earth Japan, and local community group, ‘Protect the Kujukuri Coast’ engaged Nippon Steel representatives and investors attending the meeting about the company’s now-significantly enlarged decarbonisation responsibility following its acquisition of U. S. Steel a year ago. (1)
The company continues to talk up its “multi-pathway” approach to cutting emissions, but so far it has chosen to extend the life of a blast furnace at Gary Works in the US, ignoring local people facing ongoing health problems while missing the opportunity to create low-carbon steel jobs. It is also pursuing a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project off the Kujukuri coast in Chiba without an environmental impact assessment or social license. (2)
Inside the meeting, a shareholder asked executives about the missing CCS environmental impact assessment, and the risks of damage to the Kujukuri coast and communities. CEO Tadashi Imai responded that CCS is a “necessary part of the strategy for emissions reductions”, without addressing the concern raised.
Mikiko Ishii, SteelWatch campaigner, having attended the AGM, said:
“Instead of pursuing technologies that will unlock deep decarbonisation, Nippon Steel leadership is making choices in the US and Japan that will lock in coal-based production, seemingly because they don’t have a backup plan when CCS fails. Investors should be very concerned that Nippon Steel is committing to zombie projects that risk becoming stranded assets, while leaving communities with environmental, climate, and social damage.”
Dimitri Lafleur, Chief Scientist for the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, (3) said:
“CCS is a complex, expensive technology with unproven effectiveness at scale in steelmaking. Not only do there appear to be limited opportunities in Japan to store the emitted carbon, but exporting it could also pose legal challenges for companies. The pragmatic and realistic course of action is to focus efforts on investing in existent low- to zero-carbon alternatives to blast furnaces in the steel sector, and optimising the policy environment to facilitate this.”
Photos of today’s AGM activity in Tokyo are available here: https://shorturl.at/OYpZO
ENDS
Contact
Rina Tsubaki
SteelWatch Media Engagement (Belgium, CEST)
+31 648 23 0120
Greg McNevin
SteelWatch Communications Strategist (Australia, AEST)
+61 0475 247 044
Mikiko Ishii
SteelWatch Campaigns Officer (Japan, JST)
+81 90 8381 4328
For Dimitri Lafleur:
Beau O’Sullivan
Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR)
Media and Communications Manager (UK, GMT)
+44 7950 299 491
Notes
- Nippon Steel Corporate Climate Assessment Update 2026: Great expansion, greater responsibility: https://steelwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/26-06-Great-expansion-greater-responsibility-NS-CCAR-update-2026.pdf
- Briefing: What is the CCS Business Act? Why is it Problematic? https://foejapan.org/en/issue/20240412/17021/
- Dr Dimitri Lafleur has worked as a geoscientist in the oil and gas industry for over a decade at Shell among others. He worked on the gas projects in the North Sea and the LNG projects offshore Australia, including the Gorgon CCS project. His role was to interpret and characterise the subsurface conditions of the projects.
- Nippon Steel’s Gary Works relining to prolong health and climate harm https://steelwatch.org/press-releases/ns-garyworks-relining/
- Coal first puts people last: https://steelwatch.org/stories/nippon-steel-puts-coal-first/
- ‘Protect the Kujukuri Coast’ webpage: https://www.kujukuriseasideccs.net/
- Additional quotes from people around Gary Works in Indiana, who spoke at an online press conference ahead of Nippon Steel’s AGM today, calling on the company to invest in Gary modernisation:
“U.S. Steel’s CEO tells us the future of steel is in Arkansas. He tells us that now there is a clean way to make steel, but it needs to be made somewhere else. We don’t buy that,” said Kwabena Rasuli, Board Member, Gary Advocates for Responsible Development. “If Nippon Steel believes that faith, family, and hard work built the United States, then the community that built this industry deserves the same opportunity being delivered to Arkansas.”
“This is a hero opportunity that could transform otherwise neglected facilities and communities. Unfortunately, we have not seen this perspective taken to heart,” said Matthew Mehalik, Executive Director of the Breathe Project. “The dirtiest and least innovative steelmaking techniques […] will perpetuate harm on workers and communities, and will do nothing to remove the anxiety about the eventual closure of the legacy steel industry. It is more of the same: short-term investments without serious consideration of public health and community revitalization.”
“Northwest Indiana should not be asked to continue carrying the burdens of steelmaking while being excluded from its future,” said Lisa Vallee, Organizing Director at Just Transition Northwest Indiana. “If communities like Gary have sacrificed their health and quality of life for generations to support this industry, they should be first in line for the investments that make steel production cleaner, safer, and more sustainable. We need these jobs. We need these investments. But most importantly, we have earned the right to be at the front of the line for this technology, not left behind once again.”
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