GREEN STEEL: Taking action to reduce emissions
Predicting decarbonisation is uncertain, but three major trends will significantly impact and speed up steel emission reductions in the coming decades:
- Constant efficiency
- Maximise scrap availability and use
- Breakthrough technologies
The steel industry is resource- and capital-intensive, requiring constant efficiency.
worldsteel’s members, representing 85% of global steel production, invest in and operate increasingly efficient technologies to reduce energy use and GHG emissions, employing tools such as digitalisation and AI.
Increased use of natural gas-based DRI and EAF, followed by breakthrough technologies, will significantly reduce GHG emissions. However, energy consumption will remain high, and achieving the efficiency levels of legacy technologies will take time.
Steel can be recycled indefinitely with no loss of quality, and scrap is a vital process input.
Steel’s magnetic properties make it easy to separate from waste streams, establishing it as the world’s most widely recycled material.
Every tonne of steel scrap used avoids the emission of 1.5 tonnes of CO2 and avoids the consumption of 1.4 tonnes of iron ore, 740 kg of coal and 120 kg of limestone17.
Every steel plant is also a recycling plant: all steel production uses scrap, up to 100% in the EAF and up to 30% in the BF-BOF route.
Some nations have well-established scrap supply chains, meeting most of their steel demand through the use of scrap. However, in countries with expanding steel production, scrap availability remains limited, and supply chains require further development. In these countries, end-of-life scrap availability is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. Despite the anticipated rise in scrap availability, the ongoing growth in global steel demand indicates that even by 2050, approximately half of steel production will still rely on iron ore.
As governments around the world strive to meet their climate targets, some are considering measures to retain scrap domestically and the potential for diverging national policies is growing. In this context, it is important that policy frameworks support the use of scrap in ways that maximise its contribution to global decarbonisation.
