Steel’s Competitiveness from the Environmental Perspective

by Kenichiro Fujimoto, Toru Ono, Hiromi Kawamata, Junichi Tamura, Motoshi Terao

Publisher - The Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF), Tokyo, Japan, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, Tokyo, Japan,

Category - Engineering & IT

After the Paris Agreement went into force, an increasing number of companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, have been moving toward zero emissions and contributing to 2-degree target. This has resulted in growing interest in materials with low environmental burden. Nevertheless, when an environmental burden of material is estimated, there are cases in which only certain aspects of environmental impacts, particularly during use of these materials, are considered. Moreover, in certain cases the role of steel in contributing to lowering environmental loads and low carbonization in the manufacturing and social infrastructure sectors is not fully recognized. This paper examines the environmental aspects over the entire lifecycle of materials, including the “manufacturing stage” and “recycling and disposal stage”, in addition to the “use stage” only which often gets attention in end-user industry. The paper also reviews the outlook for the global steel industry in the long-term from the standpoint of achieving United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and social/infrastructure development worldwide.

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