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Steel and the circular economy
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Shaping the circular economy is an ongoing challenge. Achieving this objective is not possible without steel. The European Commission is expected to publish a package with proposals on the Circular Economy towards the end of 2015. This package will explain how the EU intends to deal with the need to transform Europe into a more competitive resource-efficient economy, addressing a range of issues, including reuse, recycling, and waste treatment.
Steel is a 100% recyclable, ‘permanent’ material, which loses none of its unique properties when properly processed. The European steel industry works hard to ensure that the steel it produces can be reused, recovered, and recycled. It also ensures that steel production’s by-products, such as slags and process, gases are put to the best possible uses.
The brochure provides recommendations to policy makers dealing with issues arising in the circular economy for the steel industry. It shows that steel can help mitigate CO2 emissions and help reduce product lifecycle emissions. Steel’s characteristic as a ‘permanent’ material means it can be easily reused and subsequently recycled in a constant loop.
To this end, the brochure proposes that the recycling definition in the EU’s waste legislation be adapted to properly meet the aspirations of the circular economy. Finally, it demonstrates the large degree to which steel production retains as much of the material created during steel production and is able to make use of its by-products.
As part of its commitment to underpinning the circular economy, the steel industry is constantly working on cleaner, resource-efficient solutions – as well as on an ever-expanding range of steel grades – ensuring that the average 170 million tonnes of steel it produces every year are ever more sustainable, useful and environmentally friendly.
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Brussels, 10 September 2024 – The Draghi Report thoroughly identifies the bottlenecks to both the EU industry's decarbonisation and competitiveness. The proposed recommendations for energy-intensive industries, including on energy, trade, carbon leakage, financing and lead markets, should be integrated into the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal and implemented with concrete measures as a matter of urgency. Alignment across different policies is crucial, and should be accompanied by sector-specific initiatives to enable the transition of each industry including steel, asks the European Steel Association.
Brussels, 05 September 2024 – The latest developments in the steel sector and across critical value chains are worrying signs of a steady deterioration, endangering the survival and the transition of steelmakers and their key manufacturing customers in Europe, such as automotive. A Clean Industrial Deal including swift and radical measures in EU industrial, energy and trade policies, is the last chance to ensure Europe’s prosperity and shield European industry from cheap imports driven by third countries’ unfair trade practices, overcapacity and lower climate ambition, urges the European Steel Association.
Brussels, 25 July 2024 – Major indicators in the European steel market show a steeper-than-expected downward trend, further impacting the outlook for this year and the next. Poor demand conditions, driven by ongoing factors such as high energy prices, persistent inflation, economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, are exacerbated by a manufacturing crisis affecting the largest steel-using sectors, including construction and automotive. According to EUROFER’s latest Economic and Steel Market Outlook, apparent steel consumption is further deteriorating. After a slump (-3.1%) in the first quarter of 2024, its rebound for the full year has been revised downwards (to +1.4% from +3.2%), as well as for 2025 (+4.1% from +5.6%). Similarly, output in steel-using sectors, after a decline in the first quarter (-1.9%), is projected to experience a deeper-than-expected recession (-1.6% from -1%). A recovery is anticipated only in 2025 (+2.3%). Steel imports continue to show historically high shares (27%).