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Landfilled.
Downcycled (aggregate for roads etc.) *Cement used primarily within concrete structures as a key ingredient, constituting about 10%
Section 6 The bigger picture 6.1 Circularity in our world and in the steel industry.
SOURCE: ArcelorMittal.
Corporate Strategy.
SOURCE: ArcelorMittal.
Corporate Strategy.
ARCELORMITTAL • CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2 55
A move to a circular economy is much more than just recycling a material. It’s also about extending the life of that material, reducing the need for it, reusing it and repurposing it at the end of its life.
2019 marked the first full year of Steligence®, a new concept developed by ArcelorMittal to facilitate high-performance buildings and sustainable construction techniques.
Steligence® revolves around the idea of the building as a holistic entity. Traditional approaches to construction seek to optimise buildings in relation to one or another product or building function, but Steligence® integrates the needs of architects, engineers, investors, the construction sector and building users, and delivers advanced steel knowledge at an early stage. This enables us to optimise the combination of products used and create innovative and highly efficient solutions. As the only steel producer with a full portfolio of high-tech steel products and solutions for the construction market, as well as leading expertise in their use, ArcelorMittal is uniquely positioned to offer such levels of integrated service. This is a major strength for our company and is evidenced by the fact that every building project that has started with Steligence® has stayed with this concept through to its completion. Our customers trust us to help them find the right product for the right place.
Steligence® enables building optimisation on multiple fronts, for example:
Optimised construction cost and speed: by facilitating weight reductions and integrating modular parts, Steligence® saves on costly foundations and makes buildings faster to assemble.
Higher utilisation efficiency: by reducing floor heights and thereby incorporating more storeys within a given building height, Steligence® achieves 15% gains in volume to surface ratios.
Transformational refurbishment and reuse potential: by creating longer free spans between columns, and removing load-bearing walls, Steligence® maximises the flexibility of interior layouts and creates dynamic buildings that transform as user demands change. Then, at the end of the building’s life, Steligence’s® modular parts can be disassembled and reused, yielding unprecedented residual value.
Lower environmental impact: Steligence® decreases the lifecycle carbon footprint of a building by 20% compared with typical construction techniques, enabling buildings to attain higher BREEAM and LEED ratings. (Based on Life Cycle Carbon footprint of a building, source: ArcelorMittal Global R&D).
The sustainability benefits of Steligence® are a particular factor in its favour. With approximately 40% of the world’s carbon emissions coming from buildings and construction, we anticipate an ever-increasing focus on environmental performance. Lifecycle analysis demonstrates steel’s superiority over other materials such as concrete, and we see steel becoming more dominant throughout the construction sector, with Steligence® as the most advanced steel solution that actively delivers upon the needs of the circular economy.
Photo: © ArcelorMittal. Illustration: © Adobe.
ARCELORMITTAL • CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2 56
World demand for materials is increasing, driven by the construction of infrastructure in developing countries that is necessary to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Under current consumption patterns, global demand for steel is forecast to increase from 1.7 billion tonnes in 2018 to over 2.6 billion tonnes by 2050.
While world material consumption of all material groups increases, the availability of end-of-life material becoming available can only supply a comparatively small part of the input needed to produce new materials. The availability of recyclable material is fixed by the amount of products that have reached the end of their life. In the case of steel, today end-of-life steel represents ~20% of the inputs for new steel produced globally with recycling rates already at a very high level.
Unfortunately, for most materials – including steel – the world cannot immediately increase the use of secondary sources (i.e. scrap) to achieve full circularity.
Strong growth in demand means all main material groups today, not only steel, require significant primary sources of raw material as demand outstrips stock available for recycling.
The availability of end-of-life scrap is projected to increase globally over the coming decades as equipment and buildings produced or constructed over the past 30 to 80 years approach the end of their life. The recent IEA report estimates that by 2030 37% of steel will be produced through scrapbased EAF, compared with 24% in 2020. By 2050 we believe this will increase to approximately 50%. By 2100, we envision the world transitioning to a fully and sustainable circular steel industry, where the amount of equipment and buildings coming to their end of life will be a sufficient input to meet society’s replacement steel needs. Once renewable energy is readily available, secondary based steel making – which requires much less energy and emits a current average of 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel – falls below 0.1 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel.
While the increased use of scrap is therefore an important mechanism to reduce CO2 emissions, its availability is limited and therefore primary steel will remain necessary for the next 50+ years, not only to meet demand for steel but as a valuable and vital contributor to the transition to a fully circular economy.
Achieving net-zero by 2050 will therefore require the decarbonisation of the primary steel-making process. Fundamentally this means a shift to clean energies and using alternative steelmaking technologies, as well as improving efficiency within the steelmaking process. This is vital if the industry is to make its full contribution to a net-zero economy by 2050.
Section 6 The bigger picture.
The journey to full material circularity requires essential primary steel.
Photo: © ArcelorMittal.
ARCELORMITTAL • CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2 57
Section 6 The bigger picture 6.2 The carbon challenges facing steel.
The steel industry is a large carbon emitter and responsible for 7-9% of global CO2e emissions.
The majority of this today is the result of BF-BOF steel production, which mainly uses coking coal in the blast furnace to turn iron oxide into iron which is then cast into steel. BF-BOF steelmaking currently accounts for 1.4 billion tonnes of the 1.9 billion tonnes in annual steel production and has an emissions intensity of an average of 2.2 tonnes of CO2e per tonne of steel (source: WSA, 2021; IEA, 2020).
While the use of scrap will increase for the coming decades that means achieving a zero carbonemissions steel industry by 2050 is predominantly reliant on making net zero primary steel.
While ArcelorMittal produces lower-carbon steel via scrap and EAF (approximately 11% of our global production is via this route), our efforts are focussed on successfully decarbonising primary steel-making.
We are increasingly confident this is achievable and are actively developing two technology pathways that have the potential to reach net-zero or more by 2050, with a third (direct electrolysis of iron) in the research and development phase.
1t steel.
Two sources of metallics for use in steelmaking.
Volume of end of life scrap constrained by society’s disposal habits.
Volume of iron ore can be expanded based on society’s demand for steel.
End of life disposal.
Mining.
ARCELORMITTAL • CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2 58
Section 6 The bigger picture 6.2 The carbon challenges facing steel.
See Appendix A for more information on the primary and secondary steelmaking process.
As with most materials, the world is going to need to rely mainly on primary sources (iron ore) beyond 2050.
Global steel demand outlook, without taking into account additive manufacturing or behavioral circular economy trends 3,000 2,000 1,000 1990 2000 2010 2030 2040 2050 2020.
Secondary (end-of-life scrap)
Primary (iron ore) 1t steel 1t steel.
Today, steel from primary source (iron ore) has much higher CO2 emissions than from secondary sources (scrap)
Scrap.
Secondary sources 5-7GJ.
Primary sources.
Iron ore Ironmaking.
Pig iron.
CO2.
CO2 1-2t 0.6t 18-22GJ.
CO2 0-0.8t.
As with most materials, the world is going to need to rely mainly on primary sources (iron ore) beyond 2050.
Today, steel from primary sources (iron ore) has much higher CO2e emissions than from secondary sources (scrap)
ARCELORMITTAL • CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2 59
• Oxygen is injected into the basic oxygen furnace, which reacts with carbon and other impurities in the liquid hot metal.
• Liquid purified metal is used to make steel. • The impurities from the blast furnace and the basic oxygen furnace are converted into slag, some of which can be used to make cement in place of clinker. In Europe, this slag accounts for around 15% of all cement production.
Steel consists almost completely of iron, with small amounts of carbon and even smaller amounts of other elements such as manganese and nickel. Today, most steel is made using two different technologies: an integrated steel plant comprising a blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace, and the EAF.
Steel is made using iron ore (primary) or scrap (secondary) as metallic sources, or a mix of the two. Making steel using a blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace relies mainly on primary sources, although it can consume up to 20% secondary sources.
There is much greater flexibility when producing steel from an electric arc furnace. It can use any amount of scrap or scrap substitutes such as direct reduced iron (DRI).
Blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace steelmaking.
CO2 CO.
CO CO2.
Scrap.
Coke oven Coal.
Coke.
Pulverised coal.
Iron ore Sintering plant.
Sinter.
Hot metal.
Oxygen furnace.