Green steel is now defined by governments supporting the production of sustainable steel.
This is what the Indian government coined a few days ago as “green steel” hoping it will try to reduce carbon footprint in the production process itself, thus nudging all the industries to follow its footsteps. Decarbonizing is one of the methods toward the elimination of carbon wherein the major carbon contributors to that level are the steel sector.
Last week, Union Steel Minister H D Kumaraswamy released a ‘taxonomy on green steel’, which lays down well-defined parameters for classifying steel products in terms of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during the manufacturing process. The taxonomy shall accord star ratings to products and thus will help all stakeholders understand better the features of sustainability attached to these different products.
It ranks the products based on the basis of CO2 equivalent emission intensity so that the lower rating goes along with the lower levels of emission. That class of steel product absorbs less than 1.6 tonnes CO2 by the tonne of finished steel, its rate is put at 5 stars; the same emissions in a range of 1.6 to 2 get it a 4-star rating, and that same emission between 2 and 2.2 tonnes will be rated green steel 3-star. It will probably force steelmakers to shift towards cleaner technologies and reduce their environmental footprint. The taxonomy, according to the experts, will also make the Indian steel sector more competitive in the world market, enhance exports, and position India at the forefront of sustainable steel production.
This puts India in the ranks of one of the highest carbon-emitting nations and adds to around 12% carbon emissions. In this respect, an even more significant long-term climate goal for India is attaining carbon neutrality by 2070. The shift to push green steel would significantly help to reduce carbon footprints, making India a nation of top leaders that practices good industrialization. With steel mills in many parts now embracing greener production, their carbon footprint is going down. Some of the ways include increased renewable energy, fuels like hydrogen instead of natural gas, coal bed methane as fuel, and even more incorporation of scrap in the steel recipe. All these amount to a drastic reduction in emissions, which would then make steel from India a much more eco-friendly and environmentally correct product in global terms.
In principle, if well-defined on the lines of Green Steel, said to be a step forward in decarbonizing the Indian Steel Sector, clarifies an easy and transparent pathway with encouragement for companies adopting green technologies and practice reduced carbon-emitting quotient, then ratings for taxonomy will bring further consumers and businesses to pick those for credibility toward sustainability while buying steel. According to market research firm BigMint, this is going to be one of the biggest incentives for steel mills: the taxonomy of green steel when it hits the global market. This is important because the steel industry in India is of a huge size and accounts for most of the country’s emission share. As a result, it would be a critical part of efforts toward making the country meet its international climate commitments if enhancing the environmental performance by it is enhanced.
The green steel initiative will open new doors of opportunities for the steel companies with better sustainability. Identification and promotion of sustainable steel products will increase exports of green steel to overseas markets. In this case, Indian steel producers will find themselves in a better place to compete in the overseas market because the demand for the sustainable products is on an increase globally. This move from the government while defining green steel and fixing the rating system for intensity of emission marks a giant leap towards making the journey of India so that it may emerge into becoming an economy low in carbon. Guidelines are the only way since the industry body ISSDA has asked its steelmakers to take recourse proactively towards the new framework so that they could look forward to a greater green rating.
This would be one more reason green steel would boost the adoption of carbon credit schemes that would provide financial benefits to steel producers in order to cut emissions further: incentives for sustainable production will drive a broad-scale transition to green steel across the industry. Though the country’s steel sector is far off from reducing the emissions, given the coal-based primary production methods of Direct Reduced Iron, the new guidelines do form a roadmap for reduction in emission and increased sustainability. Steel mills will be well placed to take up the changed scenario both for domestic requirements and the demand in a global marketplace looking for cleaner steel.
Conclusion:It marches with the broad momentum worldwide in sustainability in manufacturing to sustain green steel. It would look to cut impacts everywhere else, and India’s steel sector would be well placed to provide products with low carbon, and thereby enable India to meet its reductions in aggregate carbon-emissions. A new taxonomy and rating of emissions for green steel will be much required as a tool for transforming the Indian Steel Industry. Such, strong support from the government to industries along with the increasing trend toward greener productions of steel will become one key factor going into the vision for India towards its future, which will become increasingly more sustainable.