Better Health for All

Century Aluminum's operations have caused severe, widespread health damage to residents near its smelters, with complaints of shortness of breath, asthma attacks, irritation, congestion, coughs, headaches, and swelling.

The EPA found that short-term exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 can cause heart attacks, death, and respiratory problems. The company's Mount Holly smelter exceeded emission limits more than a dozen times between March 2021 and June 2023, and four visible emissions events lasting over an hour occurred between September and October 2023. A class-action lawsuit was filed in November 2023 involving residents within a seven-mile radius of the smelter. The company was fined $361,500 by the S.C. Department of Environmental Services for repeatedly exceeding pollution limits between 2019-2024 and failing to conduct necessary equipment inspections or submit required documentation. The lawsuit alleges the company continued operations despite knowing about a malfunctioning system. Retirees from the Ravenswood plant lost health care benefits, leading to significant out-of-pocket costs, with one retiree facing $14,000 annually and another with leukemia unable to get new insurance. Century Aluminum received $458,000 under the federal Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The company offers employees health screenings, fitness evaluations, medical checks, and drug and alcohol testing, and access to mental health resources and counseling. A team member was lost in 2024, and the company seeks to improve safety.

Fair Money & Economic Opportunity

Century Aluminum Company is a global producer of primary aluminum, not a financial institution.

The company does not offer lending, deposit, or other financial services to consumers. Therefore, all KPIs related to financial services, such as underserved client share, pricing fairness, exploitative fee exposure, inclusion initiatives, data accessibility for customer finance data, fair lending compliance, wealth building outcomes, financial literacy initiatives, debt burden ratio, geographic inclusion for banking services, and product simplicity for financial products, are not applicable to its core business model. The company's 401(k) plan and employee benefits are internal to its workforce, not external financial services for underserved populations.

Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing

Century Aluminum Company's Grundartangi, Iceland operations achieved Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Performance Certification on February 3, 2020.

This certification covers responsible production, sourcing, and stewardship of aluminum and was verified by an independent audit. However, the provided articles do not contain quantitative data for the company's overall fair trade and ethical sourcing practices, such as the percentage of tier-1 spend covered by certifications, supplier audit frequency, number of forced or child labor incidents, supply chain traceability coverage, remediation speed, ethical clause coverage in supplier contracts, share of spend on high-risk materials, or supplier diversity spend.

No War, No Weapons

Century Aluminum's Human Rights Policy is aligned with the objectives of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and this policy is referenced in its Code of Ethics.

Annual, mandatory training for all salaried and part-time employees includes the Human Rights Policy.

Planet-Friendly Business

Century Aluminum has a history of significant environmental compliance issues. The Mount Holly smelter received a $361,500 fine from the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services for exceeding pollution limits (fluoride and particulate matter) between 2019 and 2024.

The company also faced a $361,500 fine for more than a dozen emission exceedances between March 2021 and June 2023, including four events lasting over an hour in September and October 2023. Furthermore, the Mt. Holly smelter violated particulate matter pollution limits at least 23 times in the last five years. The EPA also ruled that permit revisions, which would have allowed a 50% increase in particulate matter emissions, were illegal due to inadequate public notice. The company needs to cut carbon emissions by 92 percent from 2021 levels to meet net-zero climate goals, but no specific net-zero target year for the company is provided.

Safe & Smart Tech

Century Aluminum Company experienced a cyber incursion on February 16, 2022, which caused a network disruption and impacted certain systems.

The company detected the incursion, shut down impacted information systems, activated internal response procedures, and mobilized internal resources and third-party experts. They switched to manual operations where necessary and restricted certain external information systems. The Chief Information Officer is primarily responsible for assessing, monitoring, and managing cybersecurity risks, regularly informing the CFO and CEO. The Board of Directors oversees cybersecurity risks and conducts an annual review of the company's cybersecurity posture. The company deploys technical safeguards including firewalls, intrusion prevention and detection systems, logical access controls, endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication for remote access, email phishing test campaigns, email spam filtering, restricted internet firewall rules, limiting memory stick and external hard drive use, timely application of security and software patches on servers, antivirus endpoint protection, and 24/7 network monitoring. The company began notifying individuals of potentially accessed sensitive personal identifiable information on November 17, 2022, approximately nine months after the incursion, but the number of affected individuals is undetermined.

Zero Waste & Sustainable Products

The provided articles do not contain specific, quantifiable data for any of the KPIs under the 'Zero Waste & Sustainable Products' ethical value. Multiple articles explicitly state that no data is available regarding waste diversion rates, product recyclability, packaging sustainability, recycled content, single-use plastic reduction, take-back programs, circular design, waste reduction initiatives, hazardous waste management, product durability, repairability, waste audit frequency, zero waste certifications, material efficiency, packaging-to-product ratio, waste reduction targets, or supplier/customer waste education programs.

While environmental violations are mentioned, these pertain to air pollution and general environmental violations, not specifically waste disposal violations as defined by the rubric. Therefore, no KPIs can be scored based on the provided evidence.