The U.S. steel industry’s decarbonization path became both clearer and more complicated in 2026. The market is still moving toward lower-emissions steelmaking, but it is doing so through a mix of practical routes rather than a single leap to hydrogen-based ironmaking.
Cleveland-Cliffs’ decision to rescope Middletown Works is the year’s most consequential signal. A project once positioned around a hydrogen-ready direct-reduced-iron plant and electric melting furnaces is now a $1 billion program centered on the existing blast furnace, advanced material handling, AI-enabled controls and cogeneration using recovered blast-furnace gas. At the same time, U. S. Steel under Nippon Steel is committing $1.9 billion to natural-gas DRI beside Big River’s EAFs; Hyundai Steel and POSCO have broken ground on a $5.8 billion DRI-EAF sheet complex in Louisiana; Nucor is nearing production at a $4 billion, three-million-ton sheet mill in West Virginia; and Hybar is financing a second Arkansas rebar mill after bringing its first mill to positive cash flow within months.
Taken together, these decisions do not say that emissions no longer matter. They say that capital is demanding pathways that also improve cost, reliability, quality and domestic supply security. In the United States, the emerging transition model is increasingly EAF steelmaking supplied by scrap and natural-gas DRI, cleaner electricity, selective carbon capture and practical efficiency improvements—while hydrogen remains a future option rather than the near-term foundation.
“Green steel” was useful shorthand when the industry was trying to distinguish transformational projects from business as usual. It has become less useful as a catch-all. The term can blur fundamentally different claims: a physical reduction in furnace emissions, an EAF product with high recycled content, renewable-electricity procurement, an attributed product claim, or a future plant designed to accept hydrogen.
For this update, the better frame is more efficient, lower-emissions steelmaking. It keeps the focus on measurable outcomes and makes room for the actual U.S. investment landscape: new EAF capacity, natural-gas DRI, blast-furnace optimization, CCS, biocarbon, product-level carbon accounting and next-generation electrochemical or electrically heated processes.
In August, Cleveland-Cliffs announced a framework to rescope its previously awarded $500 million Department of Energy grant into a $1 billion Middletown Works optimization project, funded equally by Cliffs and DOE. The new program retains the approximately three-million-ton-per-year blast-furnace route and adds a major furnace rebuild, material-handling upgrades, AI-enabled process controls and a cogeneration plant that will use blast-furnace gas to produce electricity and steam. Completion of the rebuild is planned for the first quarter of 2030. [1]
That is a profound change from the earlier plan for a 2.5-million-ton hydrogen-ready DRI plant and two 120 MW electric melting furnaces. The old project aimed to replace ironmaking chemistry; the new one aims to improve the efficiency, reliability and economics of the incumbent route.
The honest conclusion is not that Cliffs has rejected emissions reduction. Capturing process gas for useful energy, improving controls and rebuilding equipment should reduce energy waste and emissions intensity. But it is a life-extension decision for integrated steelmaking, not a bridge to hydrogen DRI. It also indicates that the need to produce demanding automotive exposed grades, preserve uninterrupted operations and control capital risk outweighed the appeal of a more transformational pathway.
Nippon Steel completed its acquisition of U. S. Steel in 2025 after entering a national security agreement that included approximately $11 billion of new U.S. investment through 2028. In 2026, the clearest decarbonization-related deployment from that commitment emerged at Big River Steel Works in Osceola, Arkansas. [2]
U. S. Steel announced a $1.9 billion DRI facility, and Midrex was selected to provide a 2.5-million-metric-ton-per-year MIDREX Flex plant with first production expected in 2029. Hot DRI will feed the four adjacent EAFs, while the plant can also produce HBI for sale or export. Big River 2 with more than $3 billion of prior investment is now in full production. [3][4]
This is as much a vertical-integration and quality strategy as an emissions strategy. Keetac’s DR-grade pellets in Minnesota will feed a domestic ore-to-DRI-to-EAF chain. Hot charging avoids reheating and transport losses; virgin iron units help dilute residuals in scrap; and natural-gas DRI plus EAF steelmaking can materially lower emissions versus BF-BOF production. Hydrogen capability remains useful optionality, but it is not required to make the initial investment case.
On September 4, Hyundai Steel formally broke ground on HPLS: Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana Steel, in Donaldsonville. The $5.8 billion complex is owned by Hyundai Steel (50%), POSCO (20%), Hyundai Motor (15%) and Kia (15%), with annual capacity of 2.7 million metric tons and commercial production targeted for 2029. It is designed to produce hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated automotive sheet. [5]
The project’s configuration matters. It includes a direct-reduction plant using iron ore and natural gas, followed by EAF melting with a mix of DRI and scrap. Hyundai says the DR plant can eventually substitute hydrogen for natural gas. In current form, however, this is another commercially grounded natural-gas DRI-EAF project and not a green-hydrogen project on day one.
HPLS also shows that decarbonization is converging with industrial policy and captive demand. The mill will support Hyundai and Kia plants in the Southeast, reduce exposure to imports and tariffs, and attempt something the U.S. market has historically found difficult: high-end automotive sheet from an EAF-centered route.
Nucor’s new Apple Grove sheet mill represents a $4 billion investment with three million tons of annual capacity, automotive galvanizing and a construction-grade line. Nucor’s own project page continues to describe the plant as under development, while late-August industry reporting indicated that the EAF had been energized and ramp-up was approaching. Until Nucor announces first commercial production, the prudent description is commissioning rather than full startup. [6][7]
Unlike the other three headline projects, West Virginia is not an ironmaking conversion. Its emissions advantage comes from the EAF route, high scrap utilization, modern equipment and whatever power mix and contractual electricity instruments ultimately support production. The plant nonetheless matters enormously: it adds a large block of modern domestic sheet capacity with lower direct emissions than conventional integrated production.
Hybar’s Osceola, Arkansas rebar micro-mill adds a different model to the capital map. Led by former Big River Steel chief executive Dave Stickler, the 630,000-short-ton mill rolled its first rebar on May 28, 2025. Hybar says its direct-current EAF is at least 10% more energy-efficient than the next-best available EAF technology. By June 2026, nine months after commissioning, the company reported that the mill had been cash-flow positive since its fourth full month of operations. [20][21]
Hybar then raised $1.1 billion to build a second, adjacent mill on a 24-month schedule. Together, the two mills are expected to provide roughly 1.3 million short tons of annual capacity, which the company describes as just under 13% of the U.S. rebar market. The financing announcement identifies private equity and management capital alongside commercial bank and tax-exempt bond financing, rather than a federal demonstration grant. That makes Hybar an important counterpoint to projects whose timing and economics are more exposed to federal policy. [20]
The power system is central to the proposition. An affiliated company, Green & Clean Power, is developing a behind-the-meter solar-and-battery facility for the site. Hybar describes it as the largest behind-the-meter industrial renewable-energy facility in the United States and said in June that final certification and harmonic testing were expected later in the summer. When solar output and operating conditions align, the mill expects to be able to run entirely on renewable electricity. That is a powerful physical claim, but also a conditional one: 100% renewable operation at those hours is not the same as a 100% renewable annual electricity supply. [20]
The expansion of EAF capacity makes the supply and quality of metallics increasingly strategic. Scrap is indispensable to the U.S. production model, but repeated recycling concentrates copper and other residual elements that are difficult to remove during melting. Prime scrap is limited, and demanding sheet product applications require tight chemistry control.
That is why DRI, HBI and pig iron matter beyond their emissions profile. Virgin iron units dilute residuals, improve yield and operating consistency, and allow EAFs to reach grades that cannot be produced economically from lower-quality scrap alone. The historic U.S. dependence on imported low-phosphorus pig iron from Russia and Ukraine has also exposed mills to sanctions, war and logistics risk; replacement supply from Brazil does not eliminate the concentration or trade-policy exposure.
Big River’s integrated DRI plant, Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana’s DRI-EAF configuration and NEMO’s proposed domestic pig iron all respond to this structural metallics problem. Their strongest business case is therefore broader than carbon: lower-emissions iron units can also support product quality, productivity and domestic supply security.
| 2025 issue | September 2026 position |
|---|---|
| Cliffs Middletown H₂-ready DRI/EMF | Rescoped to BF modernization, controls and cogeneration; a decisive move toward incumbent-asset optimization. |
| SSAB Mississippi HYBRIT proposal | No revived U.S. project announcement identified; treat as inactive unless SSAB reopens a site-and-hydrogen-backed plan. |
| Nucor–ExxonMobil Convent CCS | The announced target remains up to 800,000 tCO₂/year with 2026 startup, but public confirmation of operation remains the key missing milestone. |
| SDI–Aymium biocarbon | Still a credible near-term substitution pathway; the market needs repeat commercial volumes, consistent metallurgical performance and transparent biogenic-carbon accounting. |
| Breakthrough ironmaking | Capital and pilots are advancing, but the field is separating into commercial-near-term specialty-metal routes and longer-horizon commodity-steel routes. |
The 2025 report concluded that full hydrogen DRI was ahead of U.S. hydrogen availability and economics. Developments in 2026 reinforce that view. The projects attracting serious capital are designed to work with natural gas now and preserve a pathway to hydrogen later. That is different from building an investment case that depends on abundant low-cost clean hydrogen from startup.
The distinction matters. A hydrogen-ready plant is not a hydrogen-operated plant, and a future conversion pathway should not be counted as a present emissions reduction.
Federal policy helps explain the change in project behavior. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended eligibility for the Section 45V clean-hydrogen production credit for facilities that begin construction after 2027. That accelerated deadline substantially narrows the development window for hydrogen projects that have not already secured sites, power, equipment, permits and financing. The IRS now defines a qualified clean-hydrogen facility as one whose construction begins before January 1, 2028. [16]
The broader federal demonstration portfolio also became less predictable. In May 2025, DOE terminated 24 Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations awards totaling more than $3.7 billion after reviewing their economics and alignment with current policy. Those cancellations did not all involve steel or hydrogen, but they changed the risk environment for capital-intensive industrial demonstrations. [17]
Carbon capture received a different signal. The same 2025 legislation retained Section 45Q and established parity between the credit for secure geological storage and qualifying utilization or enhanced-recovery pathways for facilities or equipment placed in service after July 4, 2025. [18] That does not make CCS easy. The permitting, infrastructure, energy consumption and verified storage remain material constraints, but it gives CCS-linked projects a more durable federal incentive framework than a new hydrogen facility beginning construction after 2027.
Nucor and ExxonMobil’s Convent agreement contemplated capturing, transporting and storing up to 800,000 metric tons of CO₂ annually from Nucor’s natural-gas DRI plant, with startup expected in 2026. [8] If it operates reliably, the project could validate a particularly American route: natural-gas DRI, carbon capture and EAF steelmaking located near Gulf Coast sequestration infrastructure.
The next update should be based on operating facts: startup date, capture rate, uptime, net energy penalty, storage verification and realized emissions intensity per ton of DRI. Until those are public, the project remains important but not yet proven in operation.
Steel Dynamics’ work with Aymium helped put biocarbon on the U.S. steel agenda. The attraction is straightforward: sustainably sourced, specification-controlled biocarbon may substitute for a portion of fossil carbon in EAF charge carbon, slag foaming and other metallurgical uses without requiring a new melt shop. SDI now markets BIOEDGE as a renewable biocarbon product platform. [9]
Biocarbon will not eliminate steelmaking emissions, and its claims depend heavily on feedstock, land-use assumptions, yield, logistics and chain-of-custody accounting. Still, it can deliver physical fossil-carbon substitution sooner than many higher-profile technologies. The measure of progress is repeat purchase orders and sustained mill consumption. EU and CBAM will potentially be significant driver. [9]
The technology field should be evaluated on a tougher standard than whether a laboratory can produce iron. Continuous operation, product quality, ore tolerance, energy consumption, equipment life, capital intensity and a credible path to hundreds of thousands—or millions—of tons per year are now the relevant tests.
Electra uses low-temperature electrochemistry to produce 99% pure iron using electricity rather than coal, hydrogen or energy-intensive high-temperature processing. The technology is designed to process a broader range of iron ores, including already-mined resources left behind by conventional ironmaking pathways, helping address both the significant emissions from conventional ironmaking and growing constraints on premium DR-grade ore supply.
The company entered 2026 with a demonstration plant under development and a growing roster of financial and commercial commitments, including a $186 million Series B, a $50 million Breakthrough Energy Catalyst award, an $8 million Colorado industrial-emissions-reduction tax credit, advance purchase orders from Nucor, Toyota Tsusho and INTERFER, and an environmental-attributes agreement with Meta. In March, Electra added a $30 million J.P. Morgan venture-debt facility to support planning for its first commercial plant. [10]
Electra’s upcoming objectives include sustained operation of its demonstration plant, continued validation of technology performance and progress toward deployment of its first commercial facility. The company’s financing, commercial agreements and demonstration infrastructure give it unusually strong commercial momentum within the emerging-ironmaking field; scale-up performance remains the decisive test.
Limelight Steel is developing a laser furnace that applies high-powered semiconductor laser energy directly to iron ore fines to produce iron without coke and without a hydrogen supply chain. ARPA-E’s ROSIE program awarded the company approximately $2.9 million for development through 2027, with program goals that include kilogram-scale production and a one-kilogram-per-hour rate—not commercial scale. [11]
The concept is compelling because it could eliminate pelletizing or sintering, use a wider range of ores and deliver direct electrification at extreme temperature. The risk is equally clear: optical efficiency, heat transfer, refractory life, continuous solids handling and the cost of scaling laser arrays to industrial throughput.
Limelight belongs beside Electra, Boston Metal and Hertha in any serious U.S. technology review. The milestones to watch are its pilot roadmap, energy balance, product form, continuous operating performance and scale-up architecture.
Hertha’s single-step pyrometallurgical process is designed to accept lower-grade ores and fines and operate on natural gas or hydrogen. The company reports continuous operation of a one-tonne-per-day pilot since late 2024 and more than $17 million raised. It plans a roughly 30-tonne-per-day facility producing high-purity iron for the permanent-magnet supply chain before pursuing much larger steel capacity. [12]
Hertha recently reported 99.95% iron purity ahead of groundbreaking for that first commercial plant. This specialty-market-first strategy is significant: high-purity iron can support better margins and a more manageable first commercial step than commodity steel. The key question is whether the operating learning and equipment architecture transfer cleanly to steelmaking scale.
Boston Metal’s molten oxide electrolysis platform remains one of the most technically ambitious routes to carbon-free iron. Its near-term commercialization path has run through high-value metals: initially ferroalloys used in steelmaking at its Brazilian operation, and now emphasizes a broader critical-metals business. A $75 million financing announced in May brought total capital raised above $500 million and is being directed to critical-metals deployment in the United States and abroad. [13]
That is not necessarily a retreat from steel. It is a commercialization sequence: prove cells, materials, uptime and operating discipline in higher-value applications before competing in commodity iron. For steel, the watch items remain inert-anode life, refractory performance, electricity consumption, continuous operating hours and the timing of a steel-specific industrial demonstration.
NEMO Industries is not a novel iron-reduction chemistry. Its proposed Louisiana project combines an ENERGIRON Zero Reformer DRI plant with electric smelting to produce granulated pig iron for EAF customers. Tenova has been selected for front-end engineering on a 2.5-million-tonne DRI plant; final investment decision is targeted for December 2027. The broader Phase One plan has been described as approximately $3 billion, with commissioning around 2030, subject to permits, commercial agreements and project financing. [14][15]
The strategic proposition is a lower-emissions domestic substitute for imported pig iron, with future CCS and hydrogen options. NEMO has credible named backers and a technology provider, but it has not yet crossed the decisive threshold: a fully financed positive FID. It should be tracked as a serious development project, not described as committed operating capacity.
Commercial lower-carbon steel is already available through products such as Nucor ECONIQ, SSAB Zero, JSW Steel USA GreenEdge and U. S. Steel verdeX. These offerings do not all use the same production route, boundary or attribute-accounting method. That is precisely why the market needs to move beyond labels.
EAF decarbonization is developing on two tracks. The first is what feeds the furnace: scrap quality, DRI, HBI, pig iron and emerging low-emissions ironmaking. The second is what powers it: equipment efficiency, grid emissions, onsite generation, storage and contractual electricity procurement. A mill can make material progress on either track, but the largest physical reductions require both.
The public emphasis in the United States appears to be shifting from new offsite PPAs and VPPAs toward power systems integrated with the mill. Hybar is the clearest example: EAF efficiency and a large behind-the-meter solar-and-battery system are integral to its Arkansas site. Pacific Steel Group is taking a similar approach at its Mojave Micro Mill, where more than 40 MWp of onsite solar is planned alongside a 32 MWh vanadium-flow battery. These systems can reduce purchased power and give operators a more direct connection between renewable generation and production, although annual claims still depend on operating profiles, grid purchases and ownership or retirement of the associated electricity attributes. [20][28]
This does not mean PPAs have disappeared from the U.S. steel sector. Nucor’s 250 MW Sebree Solar agreement and Steel Dynamics’ 308 MW renewable product purchase agreement remain important, but both were signed in 2023. No comparably significant new U.S. steel-producer PPA or VPPA had been publicly announced in 2026 as of this report’s cutoff. The newer story is physical integration of generation and storage at the production site. [29][30]
Nucor has also explored a longer-term version of the onsite-power model through its 2023 agreement with NuScale to evaluate co-locating small modular nuclear reactors near EAF mills. No specific site or deployment commitment has been announced, so the initiative remains exploratory rather than committed capacity. [35]
A separate market is emerging around the emissions attributes of iron and steel. These instruments are sometimes called environmental attribute certificates or credits, but they should not be confused with renewable-energy certificates. A REC represents the environmental attributes of electricity generation. A steel EAC or book-and-claim certificate represents a verified difference in product emissions and separates that environmental value from delivery of the physical material.
Two transactions show why large technology companies are interested. Meta agreed in October 2025 to purchase verified environmental attribute credits linked to emissions reductions from Electra’s U.S.-made clean iron, with an option for attributes from future commercial facilities. Microsoft separately signed both a physical steel-supply agreement and an EAC agreement with Stegra. Under Stegra’s structure, the lower-emissions value is separated from steel sold physically without a green claim, with controls intended to prevent both buyers from claiming the same reduction. Stegra’s production will be in Sweden, but Microsoft is a U.S. buyer using the instrument to address data-center supply-chain emissions. [31][32]
RMI is working to turn these early transactions into a more credible and repeatable market. Its Sustainable Steel Buyers Platform issued a North American request for proposals in October 2024 involving nine buyers and thirteen producers; RMI says term-sheet negotiations are expected to conclude in late 2026. In 2026, RMI also released a proposed Steel Book and Claim Framework for public consultation, addressing eligibility, emissions measurement, certificate issuance and transfer, accounting claims and double-counting controls. [33][34]
The opportunity is real: book and claim can direct buyer premiums toward low-emissions production even when specifications, geography or intermediary purchasing make physical delivery impractical. The risk is equally real. Without rigorous baselines, additionality, chain of custody, retirement and exclusive-claim rules, a certificate can become an accounting allocation rather than evidence of incremental industrial change. For U.S. steel, these instruments should complement and not substitute for physical efficiency, cleaner power and lower-emissions ironmaking.
SSAB provided an especially useful example in September 2025. The company reported that SSAB Zero produced at its Montpelier, Iowa EAF mill, with recycled scrap, fossil-free electricity, biocoal, renewable natural gas and hydrogen-reduced iron from the HYBRIT process, became the first steel to meet both the International Energy Agency near-zero-emissions threshold and the First Movers Coalition standard. The material is commercially available for GE Vernova onshore wind towers. [19]
SSAB added a closed-loop circularity initiative in June 2026 with The Greenbrier Companies and Alter Trading. Greenbrier is producing 50 gondola railcars from SSAB Zero for Alter; the cars will carry recycled metal back to SSAB’s Iowa operations for use in new steel. The initiative connects lower-emissions production with physical logistics and material traceability, without offsets, and SSAB says later updates will document fabrication, service and the return of recycled metal to steelmaking. [27]
This does not revive the proposed Mississippi HYBRIT ironmaking project. It demonstrates a different route: bring limited lower-emissions virgin iron units into an existing U.S. EAF and blend them with scrap and lower-carbon energy. That model may scale differently from a new domestic hydrogen-DRI complex, but it is a real commercial counterpoint to the conclusion that hydrogen-based steelmaking has stalled entirely.
Buyers should ask five questions:
Those questions matter because no single standard answers all of them in the same way. In practice, buyers and not producers or any one certification body will determine which lower-emissions claims carry commercial value. The frameworks now available are credible but not yet converged, and they emphasize different dimensions of performance.
The industry-led Global Steel Climate Council’s Steel Climate Standard is technology-neutral. It applies defined emissions boundaries and numeric product-intensity benchmarks to steel from any production route, requires independent verification, and requires participating producers to establish science-based targets aligned with a 1.5°C pathway. It is designed to recognize measurable product performance and progress without prescribing BF-BOF, DRI-EAF or scrap-EAF technology. As of September 2026, GSCC lists certified products from three U.S.-based producers: Arkansas Steel Associates, Steel Dynamics and Nucor. [22]
ResponsibleSteel takes a broader multi-stakeholder approach. Its certification evaluates decarbonization together with responsible sourcing and site-level environmental and social performance. Big River Steel became the first site certified under the additional ResponsibleSteel requirements for GHG emissions and responsible sourcing in 2024; its certificate reports Progress Level 1 for both categories and a site-level intensity of 1.34 tCO₂e per tonne of crude steel. The certification report also makes an important distinction: site certification alone does not mean that every product shipped from the site carries a certified-steel claim. [23][24]
These are not necessarily competing choices in every procurement. They do, however, reflect different buyer priorities: a tightly defined, verified product-emissions metric; a broader assurance of responsible production; or some combination of the two. The relevant question is not which label wins in the abstract, but which evidence satisfies the buyer’s specification, reporting obligation and risk tolerance.
Timing matters as much as framework. A buyer with an immediate public-infrastructure specification or Buy Clean requirement needs verified present-tense data. A buyer pursuing a longer-term Scope 3 target may also value a producer’s transition plan and be willing to support future capacity through an offtake agreement. Neither should confuse a future glide path with the emissions intensity of steel delivered today.
Regulatory exposure makes that distinction increasingly consequential. The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase on January 1, 2026. Authorized importers must report verified embedded emissions and incur a carbon-price obligation for covered imports, including iron and steel. The system phases in as free allocation under the EU Emissions Trading System declines. [25]
The boundary may also move downstream. In December 2025, the European Commission proposed expanding CBAM from January 1, 2028 to 180 steel- and aluminum-intensive downstream products, including machinery and appliances. Because this remains a proposal, companies should track the final legislation rather than assume the scope is settled. But the direction is clear: a U.S. manufacturer that exports finished goods into the EU or supplies a customer that does may face a materially different need for verified product-level emissions data than a company serving only the domestic market. [26]
Whatever framework and pace a buyer chooses, the underlying diligence does not change: define the carbon intensity and boundary; separate physical reductions from contractual attributes; identify whether the claim applies to a mill, product or allocated batch; and require independent verification.
One requirement is likely to become universal: the environmental information must travel with the material through processing and fabrication. Digital material passports, product-level Scope 3 data and Buy Clean requirements are all pushing in that direction. A lower-emissions melt creates value only when the downstream buyer can substantiate it. In the end, traceable proof will define lower-emissions steel in the market.
The U.S. steel industry has entered a more pragmatic phase of decarbonization. Hydrogen has not disappeared, but it has moved from near-term premise to future option. Natural-gas DRI paired with EAFs is attracting multibillion-dollar commitments. Modern scrap-based EAF capacity continues to expand. CCS and biocarbon offer targeted physical reductions. Existing blast furnaces will still receive major capital where product requirements, asset position and economics support them. Meanwhile, electrochemical, molten-oxide, laser and flexible-smelting technologies are competing to establish a commercially credible next generation.
The strongest single lesson from 2026 is that decarbonization will advance when it is integrated with the steelmaker’s core business case—not when it is treated as a separate aspiration. The winning projects will reduce emissions while improving one or more of cost, energy efficiency, metallics quality, reliability, product capability and supply-chain security.
That is a less tidy story than “green steel.” It is also a more accurate—and more useful—account of where the U.S. industry is actually going.
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) published the final version of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 on June 11, 2026—the most significant update to the framework since its launch in 2021. After two rounds of public consultation and years of development, the revised standard signals a clear shift in corporate climate expectations: from target-setting to demonstrated implementation.
For organizations throughout the metals supply chain—from mining and steelmaking to service centers, fabricators, and logistics providers—the update clarifies where corporate climate expectations are heading next.
One of the most meaningful changes in Version 2.0 is its recognition that companies do not always control every factor affecting emissions reductions. The original framework emphasized achieving specific reduction targets—creating challenges for organizations dependent on suppliers, energy infrastructure, and technologies not yet at commercial scale.
The revised standard introduces a more pragmatic, cyclical model: companies set targets, implement plans, report progress annually, and reset targets on five-year cycles. Transparency about barriers is now explicitly expected. For industrial sectors such as steel and aluminum, this reflects operational reality. Many emissions reductions depend on factors outside direct control—grid decarbonization, low-carbon raw material availability, and technologies still years from commercial deployment.
Scope 3 emissions—often the dominant share of a metals company’s footprint—receive updated treatment in Version 2.0. Rather than requiring coverage of 67% of total Scope 3 emissions, the new standard focuses on any category representing more than 5% of total Scope 1+2+3 emissions, with an expanded menu of compliance methods including emissions intensity targets, activity alignment targets, and supplier engagement.
The practical implication: companies throughout the metals supply chain should expect increasing requests for product-level emissions data, carbon footprints, and environmental disclosures from customers pursuing their own validated targets.
The SBTi update arrives as multiple policy and market forces converge around product level emissions measurement. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), California’s climate disclosure regulations, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s PROVE IT Act carbon intensity study all point toward growing interest in granular emissions data—not just company-wide averages.
For steel and metals producers, this creates both a challenge and a competitive opportunity. Producers capable of demonstrating lower-carbon methods may gain an advantage as customers seek verified emissions data for procurement decisions. Those without credible data risk falling behind.
Version 2.0 introduces a formal recognition program for companies that take responsibility for ongoing emissions through qualified carbon credits or climate contributions—a meaningful departure from the original standard’s cautious stance on carbon markets. Eligible activities include verified emission reductions outside a company’s value chain, protection or restoration of natural carbon sinks, and permanent carbon removal.
Critically, carbon credits cannot substitute for direct emissions reductions—they complement them. Still, this shift is likely to increase corporate demand for high-integrity carbon removal solutions such as biochar, direct air capture, and sustainable forestry projects—a developing market dynamic worth monitoring.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Version 2.0 is how closely it aligns with broader trends in trade and industrial policy. Even amid ongoing policy debates, carbon intensity data is increasingly viewed as an element of international competitiveness—not just environmental compliance.
The United States holds meaningful carbon advantages in several industrial sectors compared to global competitors. Efforts like the DOE’s PROVE IT Act study are designed to quantify those advantages through consistent methodology. Companies that can document their emissions performance will be better positioned in markets where carbon intensity becomes a purchasing criterion alongside cost, quality, and delivery.
Version 2.0 does not change the direction of corporate decarbonization—it changes what’s required to prove you’re on track. Companies may continue submitting targets under Version 1.3.1 through January 2028, after which Version 2.0 becomes mandatory for all new target submissions.
For the metals supply chain, the practical priorities are clear: build product-level emissions data capabilities and deepen supplier engagement. Organizations that establish these foundations now will be better prepared for both evolving frameworks and a marketplace that increasingly rewards demonstrated carbon performance.
The message from SBTi is the era of setting targets is giving way to the era of proving progress.
Phytomining uses plants — specifically hyperaccumulators — to draw metals from soil into harvestable biomass. Certain species, such as Alyssum murale and Phyllanthus rufuschaneyi, can concentrate nickel at levels thousands of times higher than ordinary vegetation. The plants are grown on metal-rich soils that are typically unsuitable for food crops, harvested, dried, and then ashed. The resulting “bio-ore” is processed through smelting or acid leaching to produce nickel metal or high-purity nickel sulphate. The energy released during ashing is recovered for electricity.
Current commercial phytomining systems generally yield tens to low hundreds of kilograms of nickel per hectare annually. Modest by mining standards, but the energy input, water use, and surface disturbance per ton of metal are dramatically lower than conventional pyrometallurgical processing of laterite or sulphide ores. A meaningful additional benefit: phytomining aligns naturally with land remediation on ultramafic or previously disturbed mining lands, creating dual-use environmental value that conventional extraction cannot match.
Three forces are pushing phytomining out of the lab.
First, supply concentration risk. Indonesia now controls roughly 60% of global nickel supply, and the resulting market oversupply has driven the sharp decline in nickel prices from the extraordinary highs of 2022, making many Western projects increasingly marginal. Rising geopolitical friction, tariffs, and industrial policy measures are pushing buyers to diversify nickel sourcing toward allied jurisdictions. Rising geopolitical friction, tariffs, and industrial policy measures are pushing buyers to diversify nickel sourcing toward allied jurisdictions.
Second, the U.S. domestic gap. Over 90% of U.S. nickel is imported, and the expected end-of-life of the Eagle Mine leaves a near-complete dependence on foreign supply for a metal central to stainless steel and battery production.
Third, Scope 3 pressure on metals buyers. Nickel is often the single largest alloy cost component in austenitic stainless grades like 304 and 316, and embodied carbon from nickel production materially influences stainless steel EPDs. Pressure is increasingly flowing downstream from automotive, infrastructure, appliance, construction product, and hyperscale data center customers seeking lower embodied-carbon materials — and they are looking for low-carbon nickel the same way they are looking for low-carbon iron units.
The commercial activity is real and accelerating:
Phytomining is not going to displace Indonesian laterite production. Current yields are only enough nickel for a handful of EV batteries per hectare per year. Scaling to meaningful volumes requires either large land footprints, significantly improved hyperaccumulators through breeding or genetic engineering, or both. The bio-ore also needs downstream refining capacity, which is itself a capital expense.
The economics depend on a green premium. The business case requires customers — EV battery makers, green steel producers, hyperscalers with capital-goods Scope 3 commitments — willing to pay more for verifiably low-carbon nickel. Without that premium or a meaningful carbon price on conventional nickel, phytomined product cannot compete on cost alone.
Bio-sourced nickel could eventually complement recycled nickel units in stainless production, particularly as mills and OEMs push toward lower embodied-carbon melt mixes. EAF-based stainless producers already lead on recycled content; adding a verifiably low-carbon primary nickel input rounds out the carbon story for the residual virgin units that scrap alone cannot cover.
Stainless steel producers, service centers, and processors that handle nickel-bearing product should be watching three things: which producers establish verified bio-sourced nickel offtake, how that nickel gets traced and claimed through the supply chain (EAC-style book-and-claim mechanisms are an obvious fit), and whether U.S. ARPA-E-backed efforts produce a domestic native-plant supply within the decade.
For metals supply chain leaders, the significance of phytomining is less about volume today and more about optionality: an emerging domestic, low-carbon nickel pathway that may become strategically valuable as carbon accounting, supply security, and procurement transparency continue converging.
At the May 2026 AISI Sustainability Committee meeting, the conversation around EACs and contractual
instruments was one of the clearest signals that the green steel market is entering its next phase.
Presenters from the Center for Green Market Activation, WSP, and Smart EPD all pointed in the same
direction: the industry needs a credible book-and-claim system to scale low-carbon steel beyond the
handful of segregated transactions happening today.
EACs originated in electricity markets — a wind farm in Texas can sell its physical electrons into the grid
while selling its “renewable attribute” to a corporate buyer in California. That decoupling is what scaled
corporate renewable purchasing into a multi-billion-dollar market. The same logic is now extending to
industrial materials. Aviation is furthest along, with SAF book-and-claim systems aggregating roughly
$400 million in committed demand. Cement, chemicals, maritime, and trucking are following. Steel is in
the conversation, with RMI’s AIM platform, the Center for Green Market Activation, and the GHG
Protocol all working to define how this works.
Consider what Microsoft and Meta actually did: they did not become direct buyers of physical green
steel. They sit too far from the steelmaking and processing supply chain for that to be practical. What they wanted was to decarbonize their Scope 3 Category 2 capital goods value chain — the embodied
carbon in the data centers, buildings, and infrastructure they procure. So they bought EACs from Stegra
and Electra. The physical steel flowed through normal commercial channels; the carbon attribute flowed
to the hyperscaler with the Scope 3 commitment. That is the model.
End-use customers — automotive, construction, appliance, packaging, hyperscaler buildouts —
increasingly have Scope 3 commitments tied to 2030 dates. And in the U.S., much of the market isn’t
direct-supplied by a steel producer to begin with. Service centers and processors handle up to half of all
market transactions, sitting between the mill and a substantial portion of end users. For those
customers, physically segregated low-carbon steel isn’t a realistic option — they need a way to claim
reductions across volumes flowing through normal supply chain channels. That is what EACs do. The
producer monetizes the green premium, the customer reports the reduction, and the service center or
processor in between can deliver product without inventorying two parallel grades — or, increasingly,
can hold and manage EACs directly to serve their own customers’ carbon target needs.
Buying decarbonized steel directly is ultimately the best outcome — it ties the carbon claim to the
molecules and signals investment to producers doing the hard work. But as RMI has found in building its
buyer platform, getting there at scale requires consolidating demand first. EACs are the most credible
mechanism to do that.
With up to 50% of U.S. steel transactions moving through service centers and processors, that channel is
uniquely positioned to manage the carbon-attribute relationship with end-use customers — attaching
EACs to product they’re already selling and directly serving customers’ Scope 3 target needs. That is a
much bigger role than simply passing physical product through. The next 24 months will define the
standards, registries, and verification frameworks this market runs on. Participants who pay attention
now will be positioned. Those who wait until customers ask will be reacting.
Three key takeaways:
The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is often described as a European disclosure rule. In reality, it is rapidly becoming a global supply chain transparency requirement — particularly for emissions-intensive industries like steel.
Recent updates under the EU’s “Omnibus” simplification package raised reporting thresholds and adjusted assurance requirements. However, large European automotive OEMs, steel producers, and industrial manufacturers remain firmly in scope. These companies must disclose consolidated sustainability data covering their global operations and material value chain impacts.
That includes upstream emissions from purchased goods and services — commonly referred to as Scope 3 emissions.
For U.S. companies involved in steel distribution, fabrication, processing, warehousing, and transportation, this shift is significant.
CSRD applies at the group level for qualifying EU companies. If a European steel producer or automotive manufacturer operates facilities in the United States, those U.S. operations are included in consolidated reporting.
More importantly, independent U.S. suppliers are indirectly pulled into the reporting perimeter. When a U.S. distributor sells steel into a European OEM supply chain, the emissions associated with that steel become part of the customer’s Scope 3 disclosure. The same applies to fabricated components, toll processing services, and logistics providers transporting finished steel products.
In practical terms, your emissions data becomes part of your customer’s regulatory reporting obligation.
CSRD-aligned reporting frameworks require companies to disclose climate risks, emissions intensity, transition plans, and material environmental impacts across their value chain. As a result, supplier data requests are becoming more structured and more detailed.
Steel distributors and fabricators should anticipate requests for:
Logistics providers and 3PLs supporting steel supply chains should expect scrutiny of:
Transportation emissions are often a material Scope 3 category in steel-heavy industries. Logistics providers will not be exempt from disclosure pressure.
Formal reporting waves extend through 2026–2029 depending on company size. However, the market is already ahead of regulation. Many European manufacturers have begun gathering supplier emissions data to prepare for compliance cycles.
Over the next 12–24 months, sustainability data will increasingly be embedded into procurement processes and supplier scorecards. By 2027, emissions transparency is likely to be a normalized component of commercial relationships with large EU buyers.
Waiting for a formal request is not a strategy. By the time it arrives, timelines will be compressed and expectations will be defined by others.
There is real competitive risk for companies that cannot provide credible, defensible emissions data. In the absence of supplier-specific information, customers may apply conservative default emissions factors. That can make products appear artificially carbon-intensive and weaken competitive positioning.
Preferred supplier status, access to low-carbon procurement programs, and long-term contracts may increasingly hinge on transparency.
At the same time, there is meaningful upside. Companies that can demonstrate lower emissions intensity, high recycled content, efficient logistics, and digital traceability will stand out in procurement evaluations.
Steel is at the center of global decarbonization policy. Carbon intensity is becoming a commercial variable.
CSRD is not simply a European reporting exercise. It is a structural shift toward supply chain carbon transparency that will affect U.S. steel distributors, fabricators, and logistics providers serving European customers.
The question is not whether data requests will come. They are already here.
Companies that invest now in emissions measurement, product-level carbon visibility, and digital data infrastructure will maintain leverage. Those that delay risk being defined — and priced — by default assumptions.
In the evolving steel marketplace, transparency is becoming part of the product.
The U.S. green steel landscape in 2025 is no longer about aspirational megaprojects. It is now clearly bifurcated:
This 2025 update reflects cancellations, continuations, emerging technologies, and the continued development of green steel products being made available for the market.
Cancelled / Dormant Projects
What this means: Full hydrogen DRI is not dead—but it is clearly not commercially deployable in the U.S. at scale this decade without massive green hydrogen production and long-term policy certainty.
Continuing
Reality: This pathway offers single-digit to low-double-digit CO₂ reductions, not green steel, but it extends asset life and buys time.
Active and Advancing
Assessment: CCS is emerging as the most viable near-term decarbonization lever for gas-based DRI in the U.S., especially where geology and tax credits align. The tax credits associated with this project are favorable under the new administration and passage of the OBBBA.
Emerging / Early Commercial
Reality: Biocarbon is not a silver bullet, but it represents a practical, near-term decarbonization tool, particularly for EAF operations and for transitional use in ironmaking where fossil carbon remains structurally required.
Strategic importance: NEMO should be viewed as an optimization pathway within the existing DRI–EAF ecosystem, not a disruptive green steel technology.
Bottom line on technology: These are optionality plays, not supply-chain solutions this decade.
While primary ironmaking transitions struggle, product-level green steel is already being sold. This is where decarbonization is actually happening.
Bottom line: Green steel in the U.S. has entered its pragmatic phase. The hype cycle is ending. Execution, data, and product-level credibility now matter more than ambition.
For decades, metals and manufacturing supply chains operated on a simple assumption: if a product met technical specs and cleared customs, it could compete. That assumption is breaking down.
Progressing into 2026, market access will increasingly be governed by trust, not just trade rules. Governments, customers, and financiers are demanding proof of how products are made, what emissions they carry, and whether claims can withstand scrutiny. Sustainability is no longer a messaging exercise; it is becoming a gatekeeping mechanism.
This shift is structural, global, and already underway.
The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is often described as a carbon tariff. That description understates its importance.
CBAM is better understood as a supply-chain architecture reset. As it enters its definitive phase, steel, aluminum, and other covered products must carry verified, product-level emissions data to access EU markets. Default values are punitive by design. Data gaps are treated as risk, not inconvenience.
More importantly, the European Commission has been explicit: CBAM is expected to expand downstream by 2028. Fabricated products, components, and semi-finished goods are likely next. This means CBAM will no longer stop at primary metals, it will follow value creation deeper into manufacturing supply chains.
For exporters and manufacturers, the message is clear: facility-level averages are no longer enough. Embedded emissions must be understood, allocated, and defended at the product level.
Running in parallel with CBAM is the EU’s push for Digital Product Passports (DPPs). These passports are intended to carry standardized information on material composition, emissions, and sustainability attributes across a product’s lifecycle.
DPPs turn sustainability data into a transactional requirement, not a standalone report. Emissions data must live in operational systems, ERP, MES, procurement platforms, and not in slide decks or spreadsheets.
Companies that delay building this infrastructure risk being locked out of regulated markets or relegated to price-taker status.
In the U.S., California’s SB 253 and SB 261 laws illustrate how trusted trade expectations migrate inward. While legal challenges are ongoing and outcomes remain uncertain, the direction of travel is unmistakable.
Large companies doing business in California are being pushed toward emissions disclosure and climate risk transparency. Even if timelines shift or requirements narrow, customer expectations will not rewind. Once major buyers ask for emissions data, they rarely stop.
California is not the endpoint; it is the proving ground. And expect other states to follow absent federal level initiatives.
As requirements multiply, global frameworks are emerging as the common language of credibility.
These frameworks are converging in structure, even if enforcement differs. Companies capable of meeting ESRS-level rigor are generally prepared for ISSB, CBAM, customer audits, and digital product reporting. Those that are not will face repeated, costly reinvention.
Framework alignment is no longer about compliance optics; it is about being recognized as a low-risk trading partner.
Energy remains a double-edged sword. Electricity price volatility and grid constraints are real cost risks for manufacturers. At the same time, grid expansion, transmission upgrades, renewable energy, and storage are driving durable, steel-intensive demand.
The winners will be companies that manage energy as both:
The defining change of the next decade is this:
Free trade is giving way to trusted trade.
In trusted trade systems:
For metals and manufacturing leaders, the strategic question is no longer whether to act, but how deliberately.
Companies that invest now in product-level emissions accounting, digital reporting infrastructure, and framework-aligned disclosure preserve optionality. Those that wait will find their options narrowed by customers, regulators, and markets acting faster than internal systems can adapt.
The metals supply chain is entering a period of rapid transformation. As global markets demand verifiable sustainability data and regulators introduce new carbon reporting rules, traditional systems of paper certificates and disconnected databases no longer suffice.
At Greenway Steel, we’ve built our business around helping manufacturers and distributors navigate developing Sustainability related initiatives. Now, in partnership with S1Seven, a leading European provider of blockchain-based digital infrastructure, we’re taking the next step, delivering digital material passports (DMPs) that bring trusted, verifiable data to every link in the steel value chain.
This collaboration gives our customers a practical, future-ready solution for traceability, carbon accountability, and compliance, all powered by a secure, interoperable digital backbone.
Steel and metals producers generate a massive amount of data, from chemical composition and mechanical properties to energy use and emissions. This data, employing latest technology, can be shared more efficiently and consistently across the value chain.
Mill test certificates, quality records, and sustainability declarations typically move through email, PDFs, or spreadsheets, formats that can be lost, duplicated, or even altered. Environmental metrics such as embedded CO2 often get trapped in isolated systems, making it difficult to comply with frameworks like the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) or emerging Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements.
The result? Bottlenecks, redundant work, and uncertainty over what’s “true.” The metals industry needs a way to exchange data that is verifiable, standardized, and trusted across organizations.
S1Seven’s blockchain-based platform enables exactly that.
A digital material passport (DMP) acts as a living digital record of a product or batch of steel. It contains key information such as composition, performance, and environmental footprint; data that can be securely updated via ledger accounting as the material moves from producer to processor to OEM.
Each record is cryptographically signed and stored on blockchain, ensuring that data integrity is guaranteed and that all participants in the chain have access to the same verified information.
“The metals industry doesn’t need more paperwork. It needs verified digital data that everyone can trust.”
— Randy Charles, Founder, Greenway Steel
In the Greenway–S1Seven model, every participant in the supply chain contributes verified data to the DMP:
The DMP becomes a single source of truth, reducing redundancy, human error, and audit time across the entire value chain.
Greenway Steel’s collaboration with S1Seven is more than a technology deployment, it’s a strategic step toward digital sustainability leadership in the metals sector.
By demonstrating how verified data can move securely across the steel lifecycle, we’re enabling our partners to meet emerging global standards while improving operational efficiency and transparency.
Our goal is simple: to ensure that when it comes to carbon and compliance data, our customers are ahead of regulation and not chasing it.
Greenway Steel helps metals and manufacturing companies advance sustainability and compliance through data-driven initiatives and trusted partnerships.
S1Seven provides blockchain-based infrastructure for digital material passports, enabling secure, interoperable, and verifiable data exchange across industrial supply chains.
For more information, contact info@greenwaysteel.com.
| Jurisdiction | Coverage of Steel | Requirements | Timeline/Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| California (BCCA) | Structural steel (hot-rolled sections, plate, HSS) and reinforcing steel | Facility-specific EPDs required; maximum GWP limits set and periodically updated by CA Dept. of General Services | Active since 2021; GWP thresholds enforced and under periodic review |
| Colorado (BCCO) | Steel, concrete, glass, asphalt | EPDs required for public projects; no binding GWP caps yet | Enacted (2021); agencies currently collecting steel EPDs |
| Oregon | Includes steel in lifecycle assessments for infrastructure materials | Requires LCAs/EPDs for covered materials; working toward benchmarks | Enacted (2022); early implementation, data gathering stage |
| Washington (Buy Clean, Buy Fair Act) | Steel, concrete, and wood in state-owned buildings | Embodied carbon reporting; state database to track EPDs; eventual procurement guidance linked to reporting | Enacted (2024); reporting tools and rules under development |
| Maryland (Buy Clean Maryland Act) | Steel not covered(concrete only) | Cement/concrete only; framework could expand to steel later | Enacted (2023); concrete GWP limits due by 2026 |
| Minnesota (Buy Clean, Buy Fair Act) | Steel explicitly within scope | Task Force to set procurement standards; EPDs and possible GWP limits under discussion | Enacted (2023); Task Force active, rules not finalized |
| Federal – GSA | Structural steel and rebar for federal building projects | Requires EPDs and compliance with low-embodied carbon procurement standards (dual standard with interim GWP benchmarks) | Active since 2023; enforceable in federal procurement |
| Federal – FHWA | Steel in highways/bridges (guardrails, rebar, etc.) | Buy Clean rule proposed but on hold; would require EPDs and GWP thresholds | Pending; uncertain timeline |
Steelmaking is one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industries. Traditional processes fueled by fossil natural gas generate significant Scope 1 emissions, creating both regulatory and
reputational challenges for producers. To date, few scalable solutions have been available to reduce these emissions without costly infrastructure overhauls. Dairy renewable natural gas
(RNG) offers an immediate, commercially viable pathway.
Produced through anaerobic digestion of manure, upgraded to pipeline quality, and injected into the U.S. gas grid, dairy RNG is chemically identical to fossil natural gas yet uniquely carbon
negative. This makes it one of the few fuels capable of not just offsetting but reversing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Unlike fossil natural gas, which carries a carbon intensity (CI) of roughly +62 gCO2e/MJ, dairy RNG has an average CI of about -250 gCO2e/MJ. This negative score reflects the avoided methane emissions from manure lagoons, where methane is 28 times more potent than CO2.
For steelmakers, this is transformative. One MMBtu of dairy RNG offsets emissions equivalent to almost four MMBtus of fossil gas. In practice, this means blending even a small percentage of
dairy RNG into a steel plant’s fuel supply can yield disproportionate carbon reductions, pushing the facility toward its net-zero goals faster and at lower cost.
Consider a steel facility producing 500,000 tons of steel annually. It consumes nearly 1.9 million MMBtus of natural gas each year, resulting in more than 120,000 tons of CO2e emissions. Substituting just 2% of that gas with dairy RNG reduces emissions by 10%. Achieving the same reduction with landfill RNG would require blending nearly 30%. The cost impact is equally stark: dairy RNG achieves the reduction for ~$1.6 million in incremental energy spend per year, compared to more than $8 million with landfill RNG.
For an industry seeking practical decarbonization strategies that do not disrupt operations or require large capital retrofits, dairy RNG stands out as a cost-effective, high-impact solution.
A central advantage of RNG lies in how its environmental benefits are transferred. Unlike liquid fuels that must be physically consumed at the point of use, RNG is fully fungible with fossil gas.
Once injected into the natural gas grid, its environmental attributes can be contractually allocated to end users through environmental attribute credits (EACs).
This displacement model provides clear benefits:
Importantly, the contractual use of EACs is conceptually like renewable energy certificates under power purchase agreements (PPAs) and virtual PPAs (VPPAs), mechanisms already widely accepted in the steel industry for decarbonizing electricity. Just as PPAs and VPPAs enable claims of renewable electricity without direct delivery of electrons, RNG EACs enable auditable, market-recognized claims of carbon reductions from gas consumption.
This stands in contrast to systems requiring “physical delivery” of RNG. Truck transport adds cost, emissions, and operational complexity. Pipeline injection ensures steelmakers can claim reductions seamlessly, leveraging the highly integrated U.S. gas network.
Not all RNG sources offer equal decarbonization benefits. RNG derived from landfills or wastewater typically has positive CI scores, meaning it reduces emissions but cannot deliver true neutrality. Dairy RNG is the only major RNG category that is carbon negative.
For steel producers, this yields three advantages:
Novilla RNG is actively scaling to meet industrial demand. Across nine projects in the Midwest and Northeast, the company expects to produce nearly 1 million MMBtus annually by 2026, with an average CI of -230. This output equates to almost 950,000 short tons of fully decarbonized steel each year.
Projects such as Three Petals (WI), Red Leaf (MI), and West Branch (IA) are already injecting RNG into regional pipelines, with additional capacity from Bellevue (VT) and Moccasin Creek (SD) scheduled to come online by 2026. This growing supply base ensures dairy RNG can scale alongside industrial decarbonization commitments.
The decarbonization of steelmaking demands solutions that are immediate, scalable, and economically viable. Dairy RNG meets all three criteria. With a negative CI, it delivers carbon reductions more effectively and at lower cost than alternative RNG sources. Through pipeline injection and displacement, its environmental attributes are transferred seamlessly and like the way PPAs and VPPAs are already accepted in the industry for electricity decarbonization.