What does sustainability mean? What measures can be taken to protect the environment? Who will deliver them and who will take responsibility? Complex questions such as these are being addressed and settled on a variety of levels, and commercial organisations and companies are of course also discussing what should be done. The answers are proving equally complex – and though geopolitical circumstances and developments promise little stability, there are a lot of companies that are taking hold of the to-do-list for themselves and investing in their own future.
One good example here is voestalpine AG, an Austrian steel group considered to be one the 50 most important firms in the sector on a global basis. It is hardly a secret that steel manufacturing is extremely harmful to the environment; up to 9% of global CO2 emissions are caused by the steel industry. The sector is already experiencing growing demand for steel that is more climate-friendly, and is thus aiming to decarbonise steel production. voestalpine has several projects in the pipeline to meet this challenge.
The most important undertaking is without doubt to decommission its conventional blast furnaces, which run on coal. voestalpine has five such blast furnaces and is planning to switch off the last one by 2050. The alternative to these is the electric arc furnace, in which, to put it very simply, an electrically generated arc generates so much heat that the metal “charge” within the furnace is melted as desired. When the furnaces currently under construction are brought online in 2027, the company is expecting to reduce CO2 emissions by some 30%. Two further electric arc furnaces will follow by 2030, halving CO2 emissions, and steel production is slated to be climate-neutral by 2050.
There will thus be no more need for coal, but electricity consumption will rise, so the steel group is already investing in measures to obtain electricity from renewable energy sources; green hydrogen may also be used at some point in the future. voestalpine is researching several new processes at the same time as investing in pilot projects in order to actually achieve zero CO2.
