By Edson Krenak (Krenak, CS Staff)
The Hyundai Motor Company, one of the world’s largest automakers, has positioned itself as a sustainability leader, promising to drive "Progress for Humanity." However, a report (available in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Vietnamese) by Mighty Earth, with contributions from Cultural Survival and others, exposes the stark contrast between Hyundai’s claims and reality. Hyundai’s steel supply chain, which relies on coal and iron ore mining, is deeply entangled in environmental devastation, violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights, and systemic failures in corporate responsibility.
The report, “Tainted Steel: The Deadly Consequences of Hyundai’s Dirty Steel Supply Chain,” is a groundbreaking analysis that reveals Hyundai’s continued reliance on destructive practices in sourcing raw materials such as coal and iron ore for steel production for its vehicles. Based on an examination of 57,402 shipments from 196 companies, the report highlights deadly emissions, labor violations, and environmental degradation linked to Hyundai’s steel suppliers.
Hyundai is the world’s third-largest automaker and owner of its own steel company, but it still relies on coal-based steel, worsening global heating. Hyundai is Brazil's third-largest vendor and exports to many Latin American countries—places where climate change impacts and violations of Indigenous rights go hand in hand.
From coal mining in Colombia to iron ore extraction in Brazil and Mexico, Hyundai’s suppliers have been linked to severe pollution, habitat destruction, and violent repression of Indigenous communities. Despite mounting evidence, Hyundai continues to evade accountability, failing to implement meaningful due diligence mechanisms that protect both people and the planet. The company is planning to increase its production capacity by 30% until 2030, the year that the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets are meant to be met.
The Devastating Impacts of Hyundai’s Steel Supply Chain
Hyundai’s supply chain stretches across multiple continents, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The impacts are widespread, affecting Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and ecosystems.
1. Brazil: A Personal Connection to the Dam Disasters Linked to Iron Ore Mining
My parents are from the valleys of the Doce River, the Grandfather Watu as it is called in the Krenak language. Watu is a prayer word used to talk to the river, asking for wisdom, peace, and health. Today, we can no longer go to the Watu because his spirit left in 2015. That was the year of the failure of the Vale Dam, which released 43.7 million cubic meters of mine tailings into the Doce River, causing a toxic brown mudflow that polluted the river and beaches. Four years after that, the Brumadinho Dam disaster occurred. On January 25, 2019, a tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine suffered a catastrophic collapse, killing 272 people and displacing over 60,000, and compromising the other part of our healthy and beautiful ancestral lands.
The area shown on Vale’s website appears lush and green, creating a misleading image of the Amazon. However, the next image reveals the true impact—deforestation, environmental destruction, and disrupted communities.
The Brumadinho disaster polluted the Paraopeba River, a vital resource for the Nao-Xoha Peoples (Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe ethnic groups), our relatives and fellow warriors of the valleys. Hyundai sources iron ore from Vale, one of Brazil’s largest mining companies, responsible for those disasters. Reports indicate that Vale had known of the dam’s risk since 2003 but ignored the warnings.
The Krenak Peoples had our spiritual ceremonies and several aspects of our culture, food, and lives disrupted, and the Nao-Xoha community were forced to abandon their lands; they continue seeking justice today. No amount of money can compensate for the devastating economic, spiritual, cultural, and social impacts on these communities, who are already contending with a lack of State policies, incomplete land demarcation, and climate change impacts.
Vale was fined $55.9 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 for deliberately manipulating dam safety audits and misleading local communities. In Brazil, the company got away with its crimes and responsibility because the Supreme Court decided to not punish them. The case had to be moved to England, where Indigenous communities and family representatives had to bear the hardships of leaving their homes to carry out the fight for justice halfway across the world.
Vale operates in many parts of the country, especially in sensitive areas like the Amazon rainforest. Vale has attempted to sow division among Indigenous Peoples by selectively supporting some communities with financial incentives and trips to cultural events. In doing so, the company has sought to manipulate consultation processes, bypassing proper information-sharing and disregarding Indigenous rights. The Gavião People in Pará are one of many Indigenous communities that have seen their lives upended by Vale’s infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest (See more here).
One of the biggest mining pits in the world: Vale’s Carajas mine in the Amazon rainforest. (Source: Noticias da Mineração)
A case not entered in the report is that of the Xikrin People, another Indigenous community victim of Vale’s operations serving the interest of companies like Hyundai. As of February 2025, the Federal Prosecutor of Pará filed a lawsuit against Vale, the Brazilian government, and the State of Pará for contaminating the Xikrin People with heavy metals from the Onça Puma nickel mine. A Federal University of Para study found that 98.5% of tested individuals exceeded safe contamination levels, causing severe health issues. The presence of metals is associated with various chronic diseases, congenital malformations, and the worsening of sanitary conditions in the community. The lawsuit demands urgent environmental remediation.
Vale and Hyundai project an image of sustainability and social responsibility, yet our report and countless news articles reveal how both companies engage in greenwashing to mask their true impact.
2. Australia and Canada: Massive Methane Emissions and Habitat Destruction
Despite being highly visible at many climate conferences and other world events, Australia and Canada’s metallurgical coal mining releases huge quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, worsening climate change. These mining operations destroy Indigenous lands, threaten biodiversity, and pollute local environments.
Studies show that Aboriginal Peoples in Australia are disproportionately exposed to climate extremes, including heatwaves, altered rainfall patterns, and droughts. These changes threaten their traditional practices, health, and cultural sites. The combination of environmental changes and existing socioeconomic disadvantages exacerbates their vulnerability to climate impacts.
According to Aboriginal Population and Climate Change in Australia: Implications for Health and Adaptation Planning, these warmer conditions “can encourage pathogen proliferation that causes water and food-borne diseases; increased sources of air pollutants such as bushfire smoke and dust can exacerbate respiratory diseases; ecological environments can become more conducive to mosquito-borne disease transmissions; and droughts can become more severe leading to food and water insecurity. The social, economic, and demographic disruptions caused by climate change can adversely impact livelihoods, including mental health and social and emotional well being.”
Indigenous communities in the Arctic, such as the Sámi and Inuit, are experiencing rapid environmental transformations due to climate change. Rising temperatures lead to melting ice and altered ecosystems, undermining people’s health, well being, and self-determination by affecting their ability to maintain traditional lifestyles. I was struck when I read about the fate of the Ninglick River community, who had to start over in a new place because of the rapid impacts of climate change. Yupik language speakers are facing several challenges to keep their culture without the ancestral lands in the Arctic. The same thing is happening in the Amazon rainforest—entire communities have had to move because rivers are drying up and drought is killing the fish they rely on for subsistence.
3. Colombia: The Wayúu People and the Cerrejón Mine
The Cerrejón mine in La Guajira, owned by Glencore—a company well known for its numerous violations of human rights and environmental destruction—is one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines. For over 30 years, the Cerrejón mine has extracted coal from Wayúu and Afro-descendant lands in Colombia, causing forced displacements, water scarcity, and severe health issues in the community from heavy metal contamination. Despite legal rulings, mining continues, worsening the humanitarian crisis. Activists face threats, while Glencore denies responsibility.
The mine has polluted vital water sources, including the Ranchería River and Bruno and Tabaco streams, leading to water and food scarcity. Glencore is alleged to be complicit with paramilitary groups responsible for killings, displacements, and forced disappearances of Wayúu people. Communities are demanding environmental justice, reparations, and a sustainable closure plan before the mine's license expires in 2034. (More here)
David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, described the situation as “one of the most disturbing situations that I have learned about in my two-and-a-half years as the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment,” while Mariuz Wayuu (Wayuu) said to a newspaper, “I want to highlight the problem that we have in our community, which is health. Our children already suffer from skin problems...bronchitis, pneumonia, and diarrhea because of our pollution problem. And not only that, other communities also suffer from being uprooted from their communities and we have to leave.” (CAFOD)
4. Mexico: Violence, Disappearances, and Cartel Involvement
Hyundai’s suppliers also operate in Mexican iron ore mines, where Indigenous activists have been forcibly disappeared and murdered. The report points out that “iron ore mining operations in Mexico have been tied to pervasive violence and human rights abuses, including the forced disappearances and killings of multiple Indigenous community leaders and activists, with some evidence suggesting possible cartel involvement in these killings and allegations of company complicity.”
As denounced by Mongabay and by the Indigenous National Congress in Jalisco’s Ayotitlán region, Indigenous communities face escalating violence due to mining interests and cartel control. Since 1975, large-scale iron mining has fueled conflicts in both legal and illegal mining operations. Defenders of Indigenous land face constant threats, disappearances, and killings, such as Celedonio Monroy Prudencio in 2012 and J. Santos Isaac Chávez in 2021. Many residents have been forced to flee their ancestral territory.
The report also exposes a shocking case from Vietnam, where 44,000 families are still seeking adequate compensation for damages caused by a toxic chemical spill from a steel plant in “what has been described as Vietnam’s worst environmental disaster, devastating local fisheries, agriculture, and livelihoods, and sparking protests that were violently repressed by the government. The company responsible faces ongoing allegations of failing to adequately compensate affected families, as well as continued environmental harms, including improper hazardous waste disposal.” These are some of the chemical and devastating fingerprints of Hyundai's suppliers.
Despite repeated warnings, Hyundai has taken no meaningful action to reduce its reliance on coal-based steel or implement safeguards to protect Indigenous communities. In Lead the Charge’s Leaderboard (a project on automotive supply chains that Cultural Survival and the SIRGE Coalition are part of), Hyundai and Kia, another South Korean company, both received a 0% rating on a supply chain accountability benchmark, meaning they have no meaningful policies in place to prevent human rights violations in their supply chains. The Leaderboard evaluates 18 of the world’s leading automakers on their efforts to eliminate emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains.
Given Hyundai’s immense global influence and its plans for Brazil and the Americas, it has the power—and the responsibility—to end these abuses and transition toward a sustainable, ethical supply chain. We reinforce the urgent necessity of implementing strong due diligence policies to prevent environmental and human rights abuses. It is time to end and block partnerships with Vale, Glencore, and other suppliers linked to human rights abuses, Indigenous deaths, and environmental destruction.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC, see our Guide here) is the first line of defense when investors and government officials propose projects that may impact Indigenous communities, lands, territories, and resources. When a company or State fails to uphold this right, the consequences can be severe—potentially leading to environmental destruction, social conflicts, and harm to Indigenous ways of life. For companies to be genuinely responsible and accountable, they must sever ties with abusive suppliers and clean up their supply chains.
I close this text with a translation of a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987), a fellow citizen of my country and a victim of Vale and predatory mining. I add some lines explaining and dialoguing with his feelings and critique:
Itabira’s Lament
I
The river? So pure.
But Vale? So bitter.
Oh, if only
The weight was lighter.
The river Watu once whispered sweet and strong voices to my people. Today he chokes, chained in mud.
II
Between the state’s hands
And foreign lands,
How many cries
Echo unheard?
Hands took, stole our lands for the steel. We wail, unseen, our bodies’ and land’s wounds unhealed.
III
The debt within.
The debt beyond.
A debt unending,
A sorrow so long.
Everything for profit, debts in shadow, for us the devastation, for Mother Earth the holes.
IV
How many tons of iron
Leave our ground?
How many tears
Fall without sound?
Their iron flows now like a river through the land torn apart while our tears fall silent, waiting for justice.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Mighty Earth for this outstanding work and for the coalition partners: Instituto Cordilheira, Earth Works, Environmental Defender Law Center, Empower, Fair Steel Coalition, Instituto Políticas Alternativas para o Cone Sul, Justice for Formosa Victims, Solutions for Our Climate, The Sunrise Project, Tsikini, and Wildsight for their expertise and guidance in drafting this report.
