Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance

The Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance establishes a framework for product-level emissions accounting in the steel sector. It mandates reporting based on a fixed system boundary and the use of primary data to ensure comparability and transparency. A key feature is the 'sliding-scale' approach, which benchmarks emissions intensity against 1.5°C trajectories while accounting for the different carbon intensities of ore-based versus scrap-based production. The guidance also defines criteria for labeling abatement technologies and provides detailed procedures for calculating emissions from exported products, by-products, and fugitive methane.

• The guidance mandates that emissions be reported at the product level rather than the corporate level to ensure that emissions information flows with the product through the supply chain, allowing purchasers to make informed decisions.
• To ensure comparability across different levels of vertical integration, the guidance requires a fixed system boundary. This boundary includes all process steps regardless of ownership, and requires reporting at a common upstream benchmarking point: either crude steel or hot-rolled product.
• Because scrap-based production is inherently less emissions-intensive than ore-based production, the guidance employs a 'sliding-scale' approach. This method balances the incentive to increase scrap use with the need to deploy new low-emissions ore-based technologies by comparing product intensity to weighted targets based on scrap content.
• The guidance establishes specific thresholds for labeling abatement technologies to ensure they are implemented at commercial scale. These include Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Carbon Capture and Use (CCU) requiring >50% capture, and renewable hydrogen requiring >20% of energy for iron ore reduction.
• To prevent inaccuracies from average data, the guidance requires producers to report the 'primary data share', which is the fraction of the emissions intensity calculated using first-hand information from supply chain actors rather than indirect emissions factors.
• For exported products and by-products, the guidance prefers process subdivision to avoid allocation. When system expansion is used for by-products (like blast furnace slag), the resulting credits must be excluded from the benchmarking boundary PCF to maintain alignment with sector targets.
• The guidance provides specific instructions for accounting for fugitive methane emissions from coal mining and the natural gas supply chain, recommending the use of 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) for consistency with other standards.

APA

Wright, L., Liu, X., Wu, I., & Chalasani, S. (2023). Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2022/09/steel_emissions_reporting_guidance.pdf

Chicago

Wright, Lachlan, Xiyuan Liu, Iris Wu, and Sravan Chalasani. Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance. RMI, 2023. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2022/09/steel_emissions_reporting_guidance.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Wright |first1=Lachlan |last2=Liu |first2=Xiyuan |last3=Wu |first3=Iris |last4=Chalasani |first4=Sravan |title=Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance |publisher=RMI |date=June 2023 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2022/09/steel_emissions_reporting_guidance.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wright2023steel, author = {Wright, Lachlan and Liu, Xiyuan and Wu, Iris and Chalasani, Sravan}, title = {{Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2023}, month = jun, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2022/09/steel_emissions_reporting_guidance.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }