EUROFER Contribution to the Resources Strategy

The steel industry is a large consumer of raw materials and energy and therefore there will always be a strong incentive to improve the yield and use the resources more efficiently. The environmental impact from the steel industry has also decreased significantly in the last decades. Thes steel industry’s ambition is to maintain its leadership position through the implementation of a sustainable development policy that will meet society’s needs while remaining competitive

The past

The tremendous development of the steel making processes has already resulted in a decoupling of environmental impacts from economic growth in a large number of cases. See below a graph of the decoupling of energy consumption and CO2 emissions from the total steel production as one clear example.

Today

The steel companies are working closely together with their customers to further develop the properties of their products e.g. corrosion resistance and strength which in turn influences the properties of the end product e.g. life-time. For example, the use of high strength steel means less material and reduced weight for the same performance and results in:

• Reduced fuel consumption in cars and trucks
• Increased load capacity in containers

The steel industry generates a wide range of by-products among which various types of slags are the predominant. Slag is used in many applications replacing virgin materials.

• Granulated BF-slag can substitute clinker in cement production up to 100 % and reduces thereby the cement industry’s need to produce clinker significantly and subsequently also their CO2 emissions.
• BOF-slag is used as high quality road construction products or fertilizers The limestone, which is initially added in the BOF to produce slag, is used twice as the fertilizer is used in the agricultural sector and thereby minimises the use of primary resources.
• EAF-slag is used as construction materials, substituting natural gravel and crushed stone.

Also, improved emission control to air and water inevitable leads to increased amounts of by-products that also need to be treated.

The future

Thanks to the European Coal and Steel Community the steel industry has a long tradition of joint industry research. This tradition continues and there are several interesting initiatives on-going that will result in even further decoupling for the steel industry. Some examples:

• Steel Technology Platform – Sets out the ambition and the long-term vision of the European steel sector by 2030. The first strategic research agenda will be made available soon (beginning 2005).
• ULCOS - Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking – Aims to develop low CO2 breakthrough technologies through a consortium of industries and research organisations. The present ULCOS project was launched in 2003-2004.

The steel industry’s expectations from the strategy

EUROFER has been closely involved in the stakeholder’s consultation giving input to the future strategy. We appreciate the initiative taken by the Commission but feel that important aspects of sustainability have been ignored in the process. Nevertheless, we expect the future strategy to take all three pillars of sustainable development into account.

EUROFER welcomes the life cycle approach taken by the Commission in developing the thematic strategies within the 6EAP and especially when it comes to the resource strategy. A holistic approach is essential to avoid sub-optimisation and inconsistency between different initiatives. However, there are some aspects that we feel have been neglected and need further attention:

General aspects

• The steel industry finds it essential to fully implement and harmonise any EU legislation before new measures are taken in order to ensure cost-effectiveness.
• Many of the EU industry sectors, including the steel sector, are competing on a global market. For the industry to be competitive it is therefore crucial to have the same conditions as non-EU based industries.

Specific aspects

• One efficient way to optimise the use of natural resources is to reuse industrial by-products as raw materials for other industrial processes. Unfortunately there are many examples where the current waste legislation hampers the competitiveness of secondary raw materials compared to natural resources. The steel industry therefore urges the Commission to take the necessary measures to ease the use of by-products.

Our comments are intended to be helpful and we hope you find them useful. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you desire any further information.