A recent analysis by UMAS and Lloyd’s Register Maritime Decarbonisation Hub shows that the steel sector could reduce nearly 800MtCO2 by gradually switching to steel with lower embodied CO₂ emissions. This is equivalent to one year of international shipping’s operational emissions. The 2023 Breakthrough Agenda, a collaboration between the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, found that both total CO₂ emissions and direct CO₂ emission intensity from the steel sector need to fall by around 25 percent by 2030 to be on track for net-zero by mid-century.
The shipping sector has a dual role to play in this transition – as a buyer of green steel for shipbuilding, containers, and infrastructure, and as a supplier of steel scrap from ship recycling. The analysis also found that international shipping could save 776MtCO₂ cumulative emissions between 2024 and 2050 by progressively adopting hot rolled steel with lower embodied carbon. The 2023 Breakthrough Agenda recommends that demand sectors move beyond commitments and pledges to contracts and policies, alongside sharing procurement data, in order to strengthen demand signals to the steel sector.
In related news, Japanese shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) will employ JGreeX, the green steel product manufactured by JFE Steel Corporation, for one of its newbuild bulkers. Additionally, Norwegian oilfield services provider Aker Solutions joined the First Movers Coalition (FMC), committing to buying at least 10 per cent of its steel from low-emissions sources by 2030. The FMC initiative aims to decarbonize hard-to-abate industrial sectors that currently account for 30 percent of global emissions, with the steel industry alone accounting for about eight percent of world emissions.
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