GHG and Steel: mapping the landscape of initiatives

Steel’s contribution to – and potential role in reducing – the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases is shooting up the global agenda. ResponsibleSteel welcomes this recognition and growing sense of urgency. But it brings challenges. One of those is the proliferation of initiatives, projects, programmes and calls for action that affect the steel sector.

The context and overall goal for all of these is the same, but the very number of initiatives makes it hard to engage effectively. Steel’s ubiquity as material means that is affected by a multitude of different efforts – whether they are focussed on leveraging finance and investment, materials for low carbon buildings and infrastructure, steel for automotive manufacturing, or new policy initiatives focussed on public procurement, the ‘Green Deal’ or post Covid-19 support for industry. And steel also has a role as the major customer for mined materials, including iron ore and coking coal.

ResponsibleSteel and its steelmaker and civil society members are at the heart of many of these initiatives. The first ResponsibleSteel standard was published in November 2019, and steelmaking sites are currently undergoing assessment. The Climate Group’s ‘SteelZero’ project, in collaboration with ResponsibleSteel, aims to build momentum and help align demand for ‘low GHG emission’ steel. We are active supporters of the We Mean Business Coalition and we and many of our members are involved with and support the work of ETC. But how do all these initiatives fit together?

On 29th September ResponsibleSteel will be hosting two member webinars – one at 09.00 BST, and then repeated at 17.00 BST – to present and discuss the results of a mapping exercise we are carrying out to better understand the landscape of GHG initiatives that affect the sector and ResponsibleSteel’s role and relationships with those initiatives. This will be the first of our series of ResponsibleSteel Member webinars. We will be sending out invitations this week – Members and Associates, please mark your schedules if you would like to attend.