Thursday 16 June 2022

ArcelorMittal launches ‘low carbon’ steel standard

Steel giant ArcelorMittal has announced a low carbon steel standard – that it hopes will kickstart the sector on its net zero journey.

It has published clear definitions for what low carbon or zero-carbon steel consists of – with an aim to push through more informed policy around what steelmakers need to do to become green.

The standard has been written with three core principles that must be met for it to be classified as low carbon.

Firstly, the product must be scored against an emissions-per-tonne scale to gauge how carbon intensive it is.

Secondly, the steel must be designed in a way that encourages the use of cleaner technologies, instead of using older materials with existing infrastructure – due to embodied emissions.

Lastly, carbon emissions must be clearly defined – as to where they are coming from and what has led to them being a part of the product.

Vice President, Brad Davey, said: “Setting a standard to classify low-carbon emissions steel during our industry’s transition to net zero is critical to our decarbonisation journey.

“We have spent a lot of time thinking about how to do this in a fair way that incentivises all steelmakers to reduce emissions and ultimately achieve net zero.

“As this is such a critical topic for the industry, we decided to directly publish the key principles we believe should be at the core of any system to officially categorise lower and near zero carbon steel.”