The roadmap sets out how the UK structural steelwork sector will decarbonise to meet the UK net-zero carbon target by 2050.
While significant progress has been made over recent decades to reduce the energy and carbon intensity of steelmaking, more needs to be done and action is required by all parts of the supply chain; designers, steelwork contractors, steel producers and stockholders and demolition contractors all working closely together on both demand side and supply side reduction measures.
The scale of the challenge is recognised but given the right policies, incentives and financial support, the technologies outlined in this roadmap can deliver decarbonised steel structures by 2050. The breadth of available technologies and other measures is a major strength of the roadmap. It gives flexibility to respond and react to enabling policies as they are developed and implemented and as new technologies are commercialised at
different timescales.
The prize is huge; a truly circular and sustainable model in which steel structures are constructed, adapted and extended to prolong building lifetimes and ultimately, routinely deconstructed and reused. Where this isn’t possible, the steel is recycled in electric arc furnaces powered using zero-carbon renewable energy, to be used again in the same or a new application.
Download the UK structural steelwork: 2050 decarbonisation roadmap
