BMW extends ‘green’ steel commitment

BMW has sealed a deal with H2 Green Steel to deliver CO2-reduced steel as part of the car manufacturer’s drive to more circular production and reduced emissions.

As part of solidifying a binding agreement, BMW Group and H2 Green Steel have also agreed on technical cooperation which will include several measures that address BMW Group’s Science Based Targets and contribute to meeting its CO2 reduction goals.

H2 Green Steel, based in Boden in north Portugal, is committed to the Scope 1, 2 and upstream Scope 3 requirements as defined in the GHG Protocol and quotes a gross embodied carbon emission intensity obligation per tonne of steel in its customer contracts.

Additionally, recycling scrap is an important part of the deal. Both companies have agreed that 40% of steel scrap generated by vehicle production returned to H2 Green Steel’s electric arc furnaces for recycling.
In February, the company announced a similar deal for green steel with German steelmaker Salzgitter.

According to H2 Green Steel’s definition, green steel must be produced from a combination of a significant amount of green virgin iron and scrap in a production process which uses electricity from renewable energy sources. The total CO2 emissions in such a process must be more than 90% lower than that of traditional steelmaking in a blast furnace process.

‘We are on a mission to decarbonise the steel industry; working with progressive companies like BMW Group, pushes us to be better both in our own operations and our value chain,’ says Henrik Henriksson, ceo of H2 Green Steel. ‘It also pushes us to be an even better partner to our customers and raises the bar for industry peers on the decarbonisation journey.’

BMW Group plans to incrementally raise the share of ‘green steel’ by up to 50% by 2030. It says around 70% of leftover aluminium and steel offcuts from the pressing plants is recycled, allowing the company to reduce CO2 emissions in international production by more than 70% since 2006. BMW consumes about 500 000 tonnes of steel at its European plants annually.