In compiling the ranking, the publication reviewed all areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR), both internal (for the benefit of employees) and external (for the benefit of society). Among these, particular attention was paid to the following practices:
- assistance to the army (including colleagues in the military)
- support for those affected by the war and other vulnerable groups
- facilitating the reintegration of veterans
- supporting employees (including safety, comfort, improving psychological and emotional well-being, etc.) and providing them with decent working conditions
- personnel development
- environmental protection measures
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Metinvest Group has provided UAH8 billion in aid to the Ukrainian state and its citizens and it has become the largest donor to the country’s defence forces among all Ukrainian businesses. You can read more about the projects that helped the Group enter the ranking in this DS article.
Steel and care. Metinvest has become a pillar of support for the army and communities
One of the country’s largest manufacturing companies is carrying out a significant social mission. In addition to providing production and financial support to the army, Metinvest Group takes care of its personnel and implements charitable projects in the regions where it has operations.
Metinvest’s priority during the war has been to support Ukraine’s defence forces. The Group has spent more than UAH4.4 billion on this purpose as part of Rinat Akhmetov’s Steel Front defence initiative. Metinvest supplies its products to the military free of charge as a contribution to the defence of Ukrainian cities. Special attention is given to units located in the south and east of the country, where the Group’s enterprises are located.
One of Metinvest’s most important developments has been special mobile shelters: steel “hideouts” that are installed underground. There are already 651 of them protecting the lives of soldiers at various locations on the front line. In addition, the Group is building command posts based on these hideouts.
Ukraine’s first underground hospital was built in August 2024. It is equipped with modern medical equipment and can treat more than 100 patients a day. The cost of the project was over UAH20 million.
In addition, Metinvest has also manufactured and supplied 246 steel screens to protect armoured vehicles from video-piloted drones to the defence forces, along with 61 “lancet catchers,” 63 shields for front-line vehicles and 23 mine trawls. The Group’s steel is also used to make armour plates for bulletproof vests, anti-tank hedgehogs, mini-bastions and mobile buggies for the military.
It is essential in this war to prepare properly for encountering the enemy, which exerts massive pressure on the front and often resorts to “human-wave” assaults. That is why Metinvest is helping Ukraine’s army by providing it with materials, special equipment and expert personnel to build reliable defence lines. Over 200 kilometres of fortifications have been built in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions with the Group’s support.
However, no matter how extensive the Group’s business activities may be, there are always requests from the front line that can be addressed with precision through financing and organising the procurement of essential equipment or resources. Metinvest also meets such needs in large quantities. During the war, Ukraine’s defenders have already received 5,553 surveillance drones, 2,003 thermal imagers, and 551 vehicles, including ambulances. The Group has also provided 1.5 million litres of fuel to refuel them. In cooperation with the PULSE charitable foundation, Metinvest has already supplied more than 31,000 first aid kits and tourniquets to the defence forces.
Support for defenders: from mobilisation to reintegration
A large company, especially one like the Group, always resembles a society. Just as Ukraine has already developed a large cohort of people who have participated (along with their friends and families) in the war for independence, some 9,000 Metinvest employees (one in five to six employees) have been mobilised into Ukraine’s army, and over 1,000 of those mobilised (including, since 2014, war veterans) have already returned and started work. The Group takes care of these people throughout this period: from mobilisation training and service to reintegration into process of work and civilian life. Metinvest assists them in purchasing the necessary equipment, keeps in touch with them while they are at the front and responds promptly to their requests. As soon as the defenders return to their enterprises, they receive systematic support to help them adapt. As their jobs have been kept for them, approximately 85% of returning veterans continue to work in their previous positions. However, if necessary and possible, the Group can adapt workplaces for veterans who have returned in a different physical condition or retrain them to perform other tasks.
In addition, management understands that people from the front line need to spend time with their families or to become accustomed to performing functions in a civilian workplace again. Veterans are offered physical and psychological rehabilitation at the Group’s expense, and teams are prepared to welcome fellow defenders.
Metinvest has developed a comprehensive reintegration ecosystem for veterans that is based on the principles of responsibility, consistency and internal justice.
Personnel development: decent conditions, training and retraining
One of the main areas of focus for Metinvest Group’s CSR work has always been the support and development of employees. Currently, the Group is doing its best to attract and retain specialists, with 4,000 current vacancies in engineering and technical fields. And the reason for the staff shortage is not working conditions — Metinvest has always paid competitive official salaries and prioritised workplace safety — but the consequences of mobilisation and migration that are particularly noticeable at enterprises located in the country’s east, which largely employ men of conscription age.
Among other things, the Group offers its employees training or retraining and even access to higher education at Metinvest Polytechnic university on preferential terms. The Group is also committed to maintaining gender equality: if they want, women are gradually learning specialties that have traditionally been viewed as male roles. The first female team is already operating complex machinery at the Pokrovsk mine.
Care for communities
Another consistent area for Metinvest has been its support for the regions where it operates. In particular, to take care of employees, their families and residents of these communities, the Group has helped 516,000 Ukrainians as part of the Saving Lives initiative. This includes providing 4,200 tonnes of food, personal care products, other essential items (gathered in cooperation with donors and partners), and medicines for hospitals worth UAH9.5 million.
Despite facing unprecedented military challenges, Metinvest continues to fulfil the commitments set out in its memorandums on social and economic partnership with local authorities. For example, this year, the Group allocated funding to reconstruct an outpatient clinic, repair damaged roads, re-roof educational facilities and restore the water supply in the community of Hlevuvatska in Dnipro region. In Kamianske, it helped to renovate the area’s largest healthcare facilities (the trauma unit at Hospital No. 9 and a clinical diagnostic laboratory at the emergency hospital).
Responding to the challenges of the times, the Group also assists in creating spaces for veterans. In Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Rih, Metinvest has joined the “Free Waves” initiative, which provides free swimming sessions for defenders. There is also the “Communicate. Veteran” project, a platform for dialogue between war veterans and experts from various fields that seeks to overcome the challenges that people face after returning from the front line. It can be said that Metinvest has set the goal of contributing to the development of a society centred around veterans that is united by the idea of respecting heroes.