This 12th edition of the Sustainability Report is published at the most challenging moment in Vale's history. With the failure of Dam I of the Córrego do Feijão Mine in Brumadinho on January 25 of this year, we lost colleagues, family, friends and community members. This incident negatively impacted people's lives and caused environmental and economic damage. From the first moment it happened, we have focused on serving the population and repairing the damage, but there is still a lot to be done.

Our obligation is to draw lessons from this tragedy to transform Vale into a more humane, safety-oriented and sustainable company. To this end, we will make every effort to rethink our methods and processes, without ever forgetting our responsibilities to Brumadinho. We will work tirelessly to ensure the safety of people throughout our operations.

Among the steps we are taking in this direction, I highlight two:

• We have implemented the Special Department of Repairs and Development, which will report directly to me, to coordinate all our efforts to repair the socioenvironmental and economic impacts caused in Brumadinho and the region, accelerate the process of paying indemnities, restore dignity to the victims’ families and others affected, and encourage the resumption of economic activities in the community. In addition, this department will support and bring transparency to the investigation as it identifies the causes of the tragedy.
• We have created the Executive Board of Safety and Operational Excellence, which we have just approved, to ensure in an effective manner and unrelated to the context of the operational units, the qualified management of these issues, which are extremely relevant to the company:
• Accelerating the decommissioning plan for all upstream dams;
• Giving greater impetus to the Vale Production System (VPS) to reinforce the company's operational excellence; and
• Coordinating the Centre of Operational Risk Management and Asset Integrity with independence of conduct.

The Sustainability Report is part of Vale's commitment to provide information transparently. Thus, we present here the 2018 results and address the failure of Dam I, which makes clear our need to place a higher priority on ensuring the safety of people, the reliability of our operations and our protection of the environment.

As can be seen in detail on the pages of this report, in 2018 we increased some of our sustainability actions. We defined the Water Goal, which was created to reduce consumption and increase reuse, and we continued our actions aimed at mitigatiing and adapting to climate change, focusing on reducing atmospheric emissions and improving air quality indicators.

In order to expand our work with communities close to our operations, we are committed to the following variable remuneration goals the development of 46 relationship plans, 37 of them in Brazil, during 2018.

Altogether, US$116.5 million was spent on social actions, for the most part to boost urban infrastructure and mobility, traditional communities and Indigenous peoples, and opportunities to generate work and income. Of this total, US$13.4 million was contributed directly by the Vale Foundation, which has completed 50 years of work in Brazil contributing to territorial development by promoting initiatives for work and income generation, health and education.

Now, given the circumstances we face, we are determined to accelerate and further deepen this constant search for improvement, honouring the commitment that Vale has always maintained with transparency in its management and operations: to actively participate in initiatives and associations that strive for sustainability in business, compliance in procedures and clarity in actions and relationships.

As an example, we highlight Vale's association with the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM) and its presence in the Novo Mercado index of the Brazilian stock exchange B3, focused on the best practices of transparency in relationships with shareholders.

Today, our commitment is to do even more than we have done so far to transform Vale into a company that is as recognized for its respect for life and the environment as it is for its market value. This is the objective that we will pursue from now on.

Eduardo Bartolomeo
Chief Executive Officer