Low-carbon steel

ICC has tied up with the Climate Group to develop market demand for low-carbon steel in India. To decarbonise steel production in India implies scaling several emergent manufacturing technologies whose cost curves are still very high. Such actions also entail a higher cost of (climate) capital that will erode profitability and go against national desire to remain globally competitive.

Given this context, India SteelZero was seeded by the ICC to begin with building awareness and plugging evidence gaps on the demand outlook for low carbon steel in India. The effort will also involve enrolling companies in the steel value chain to commit to procurement targets, but first, deliberate on the demand outlook, agree to procurement guidelines via working groups and eventually plug into the global SteelZero Platform for steel consumers to aggregate and create a market demand for net-zero steel.

“We have kicked off with this project to accelerate cross-industry dialogue and stimulate market demand for green steel, as it is called. It’s a market that does not exist as of now and it’s a heavy piece of work,” says Ms Nath, who heads ICC.