As much scrap metal, green electricity and organic coke as possible.

These are some of the most important ingredients when the Finnish company Outokumpu cooks its particularly “clean” stainless steel.

"Circle Green" is the name of the new product line, in which only 0.5 tons of carbon dioxide are to be produced per ton of stainless steel.

According to the company, this is an improvement of 92 percent compared to the international industry average and a world record in terms of sustainability.

“With Circle Green we offer the world's lowest CO2 stainless steel.

With this we are once again raising the standard significantly,” said CTO Stefan Erdmann of the FAZ

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

  • Follow I follow

The steel trader Klöckner & Co has bought a first coil of stainless steel in Circle Green quality.

According to the Duisburg company, larger quantities are to follow from 2023 onwards.

The German subsidiary Becker Stainless, among others, is to undertake the “processing” of the goods according to customer specifications.

Earlier this year, Klöckner secured CO2-reduced steel from other manufacturers.

With the new contract, the company is now also entering the stainless steel segment and is strengthening its "position as a pioneer of sustainability," said CEO Guido Kerkhoff.

Residual materials are recycled

For the new "premium quality", the group has taken on the entire value chain, said Erdmann.

One of the variables is charcoal to increasingly replace conventional coke.

Then only as much CO2 is released as the forest previously bound from the atmosphere.

Erdmann attaches great importance to the fact that the company obtains the organic coke from Scandinavian forest waste and not "from tropical rain forest plantations like our competition".

He is alluding to his competitor Aperam, which operates two charcoal-fired blast furnaces in Brazil.

The organic coke for Outokumpu is made exclusively in Scandinavia from residues that have traveled a maximum of 300 kilometers to the processing plant.

The gas produced during charring is used on site to generate electricity and heat.

Even outside of its premium segment, Outokumpu sees itself at the top of the industry comparison with an average of 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of stainless steel.

As Erdmann explains, this is due to the above-average use of metal scrap, which is melted down in the electric arc furnace.

The group has a recycling rate of around 90 percent across all products.

As another important lever, he cites the supply of chrome from our own mine, which is to produce completely CO2-neutrally by 2025.

The very self-confident sustainability marketing is surprising at first.

Because Aperam, number two behind Outokumpu in Europe, claims very similar or even slightly better values.

For Erdmann, however, this is a case of apples and oranges, because the CO2 footprint is calculated using different models.

"For a fair comparison, one has to take into account that Outokumpu applies the strictest standards in the industry and also captures emissions from the upstream supply chain as much as possible," he said.

First manufacturer to provide data

These emissions, referred to as Scope 3 in climate protection vocabulary, relate, among other things, to the CO2 balance of raw materials such as ore, nickel and chrome, transport and production waste.

In addition, Outokumpu decided against offsetting, i.e. against the mathematical reduction of CO2 by purchasing certificates.

With the data recorded along the process chain, the company now shows how high the CO2 load of the material is for each product.

According to their own statements, the Finns are the first stainless steel manufacturer to make this data available.

This gives customers a reliable basis for precisely calculating the carbon footprint of their own products and for offering the market more sustainable solutions, said Erdmann.

So he is not worried about the demand.

In order to achieve the climate protection goals, the transport sector in particular is dependent on reducing its indirect emissions from vehicle production.