Whereas the standard steel-making process demands that carbon add-ins be made during the melting process, Aperam is anything but standard. That’s why we’ve managed to eliminate our add-in of extractive coke.
Our BioEnergia eucalyptus forest in Brazil allows us to use renewable carbonised trees, or charcoal, instead of mined coke. (Learn more here).
As a result, our Brazilian operations have seen their CO2 footprint decrease from 1.05 tons per ton of slabs in 2008 to 0.40 tons in 2019. At the group level, our 2019 (scope 1+2) CO2 footprint now stands at 961 kilo-tonnes (680 +281 kt), or 0.484* t/tons of slabs, in line with last year’s performance. Representing a 35.2% decrease from 2007 and in line with our -35% 2020 objectives, this gives us the right to claim ourselves as being “the stainless steel producer with the lowest CO2 footprint in the world”.
We have also been recognized with latest CDP „Leadership level“ rating of „B“.
However, for us, this does not fully reflect reality as our FSC®-certified BioEnergia forestry is actually carbon positive, with the leaves and branches falling to the forest floor degrading into humus and feeding the local flora.
When one considers the exact carbon retention of eucalyptus and the CO2 emission of charcoal in the calculations, the carbon footprint of our products made in Brazil actually improves by at least 10%. In addition, we consider that we stock in our well-managed forests four times more CO2 than what we emit annually company-wide. This is also how we participate in the fight against climate change.
*Data highlighted with a star have received external assurance.