An important step on the way to green lead markets in the basic materials industry is the uniform classification of the climate impact of the steel produced using various processes in Germany. The Low Emission Steel Standard (LESS) is also an important instrument that specifies the procurement of green steel in public procurement. The company Georgsmarienhütte GmbH intends to be one of the first steel manufacturers to undergo LESS labeling.
Together, business, science and politics have agreed on a method for classifying climate-friendly (“green”) steel. The aim is to ensure comparability of the decarbonization efforts of different steel manufacturers and production routes.
LESS
The LESS standard is aimed at cross-industry and international collaboration and is designed to be open. It therefore provides the prerequisites for cross-industry measurement and pricing of climate-friendly production within the framework of green lead markets for the basic materials industry.
In the future, the LESS label will enable manufacturers to prove whether their steel has a green classification, what Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) it has and how much scrap it was made with. The PCF is a quantitative indicator that indicates how many greenhouse gases were emitted into the atmosphere during steel production and upstream production processes, such as electricity generation or the production of alloying agents.
PCF since 2023
Georgsmarienhütte GmbH has been reporting the PCF since 2023 at the request of customers and, as part of its own transformation strategy, has already saved 80 percent of CO2 emissions with scrap-based steel production in electric arc furnaces compared to the production of raw steel using the traditional blast furnace route (regarding Scope 1 and 2). The methodology used by Georgsmarienhütte to calculate the Product Carbon Footprint has been validated by TÜV SÜD and is used for more than a thousand steel variants.
The company wants to be completely climate-neutral by 2039. In this context, the GMH Group expressly supports the new LESS initiative, which is being presented by the Steel Association today at the Hanover Trade Fair and supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK).
“We welcome LESS, which unifies the various certifications of climate-friendly steel production. With the LESS label, our customers are assured that they are actually purchasing steel manufactured with low CO2 emissions and can therefore declare their own product to be correspondingly CO2-reduced. Standardization is an important step towards greater transparency in showing the steel industry's progress on the path to transformation.
LESS is also an essential component for the introduction of green lead markets for climate-friendly raw materials in Europe. The comparability of differently manufactured materials and products through standardized and independent climate ratings such as LESS creates the conditions for fair evaluation and pricing in line with climate goals. The next step will depend on whether and how quickly the public sector aligns its procurement with LESS. I am convinced that appropriate positioning by state-owned companies will significantly accelerate the acceptance of the Low Emission Steel Standard,” said Dr. Anne-Marie Großmann, member of the management and shareholder of the GMH Group.
At LESS, both the transformation process in steel production on the conventional blast furnace route in the transition to low-CO2, hydrogen-based production processes is evaluated, as well as the already carbon-reduced electric jet production, which is based on scrap. Georgsmarienhütte GmbH intends to be one of the first companies in Germany to take part in the test run of pre-validation according to LESS in the second half of 2024.
