With steel currently making up about 55 percent of the average vehicle according to the American Iron and Steel institute, and automotive manufacturing being responsible for nearly 10 percent of all global industrial CO2 emissions according to Greenpeace, reducing the carbon footprint of steel in vehicle production is recognised as central to achieving net global sustainability goals. What isn’t as recognised is that the project may be suffering first and foremost, not from a systemic, but a definitional problem. Automotive production must define its terms. Then there are the central issues of recycling - or lack thereof - and the key issue: cost of implementation.

In a recent livestream, Nick Holt, editor of Automotive Manufacturing Solutions (AMS), and Daniel Harrison, AMS automotive analyst, discussed the state of sustainable steel in the automotive industry with Thomas Hörnfeldt, VP of sustainable business at global steel producer, SSAB…