The Global Steel Climate Council (GSCC) today released a draft of The Steel Climate Standard, a global standard to measure and report steel carbon emissions.

The Steel Manufacturers Association is a founding member of GSCC, which today has nearly 40 member companies. Together they have steelmaking or scrap processing operations in 79 countries.

The standard focuses on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the global steel industry with a science-based glidepath to reduce emissions in line with the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement to achieve a 1.5º C scenario.

The standard offers a technology-agnostic protocol that would apply to all steel producers equally on a global basis and would enable steel customers to know and compare the actual carbon emissions associated with steel products.

GSCC is one of several groups and companies advocating for a global standard. Some in the United States and Europe are promoting a standard that features a “ferrous scrap usage sliding scale” – one standard for steel made from traditional production processes and another for steel made from circular processes.

“Creating a dual standard would allow high-carbon emissions steel to be prioritized over lower-carbon steel. This is a form of greenwashing and serves to discourage innovation and allows high-carbon steelmakers to postpone making changes in their production process,” said Phil Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association.

In publishing its standard, the GSCC is inviting interested organizations to review The Steel Climate Standard and submit comments, which are due by May 17, 2023.

The full text of the document and guidelines on submitting comments can be found at https://globalsteelclimatecouncil.org.