Underscoring the steel industry's effort to reduce its CO2 emissions, the World Steel Association (worldsteel) has launched its Climate Action recognition program that recognizes steel producers that have met their commitment to participate in its CO2 emissions data collection program. The organization also unveiled its dedicated climate change website.
The Climate Action program measures the current level of emissions from the production of steel worldwide, enabling individual steel plants to benchmark their efforts against both average and best performance. The program is open to all steel producers.
Recognition can be obtained at a corporate or site level as long as CO2 emissions data for more than 90 percent of the crude steel production of the company or the site is submitted. The recognition is valid for two years.
Two-thirds of the worldsteel membership took part in the first round of data collection, which ended earlier this year. The steel industry has agreed to a common methodology to measure CO2 per ton, which will be used by all companies for all processes. The association has started to collect 2008 data.
The U.S. steel industry is currently lobbying to get credit for the fact that it has reduced carbon emissions since the 1990s as it faces the possibility of hefty fees to pay for emissions under a proposed cap-and-trade program.
