In his speech at the SteelOrbis Italy Forum 2024 taking place on Tuesday, October 8, in Milan, Raffaele Ruella, CFO and managing director of AFV Beltrame Group, emphasized the importance that sustainability and decarbonisation have for the group and the strategies it implements to fully integrate these aspects into its strategic decision-making and operational activities.
In line with the new regulations, AFV Beltrame Group has defined, as the core of its sustainable strategy, a structured decarbonization plan based on the determination of the carbon footprint of all the group's activities (i.e. Scope 1, 2 and 3) according to the ISO 14064-1 standard and on the definition of a series of projects to reduce CO2 emissions with the aim of reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 40 percent by 2030. Currently, Beltrame steel has a carbon footprint below the international and European sector averages, standing at 570 kg CO2 per mt of rolled steel (Scope 1, 2 and 3 upstream), approximately 67 percent lower than global steel industry emissions and approximately 19 percent lower than the European average of EAF steel emissions.
Despite the fact that the group's emissions have been certified below industry averages, the company has nevertheless decided to continue reducing its carbon footprint with specific projects and investments aimed at improving production efficiency through, for example, the revamping of the main reheating furnaces of the rolling mills and the optimization of operating procedures. Beltrame Group has also implemented circular economy practices to improve the quality of scrap and other raw materials, along with measures to reuse production process waste and replace raw materials with recycled materials, such as the use of SRA (secondary reducing agent) to partially replace anthracite coal, which to date allows for a 15 percent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 2022.
The company has also reinforced its production efficiency strategy to further reduce energy consumption. In fact, the implementation of clean energy production will gradually, but steadily, replace fossil fuels, through hydroelectric plants, photovoltaic plants and the Renewability Consortium, a community of renewable energy consumers, which aims to invest in the construction of renewable energy generation plants and supply the energy produced to each member. Furthermore, the Beltrame Group is preparing for the use of green hydrogen as a fuel, and is also participating in EU-funded projects to study these solutions. With these projects and investments, the group expects to reach the target of a 40 percent reduction (compared to 2015) of CO2 emissions in Scope 1 and 2 by 2030.
This has led, in autumn 2022, to the launch of the Chalibria brand, the carbon neutral certified steel for Scope 1, 2 and 3 (upstream) emissions according to the cradle to gate criterion. For emissions that the group is not yet able to reduce, carbon neutrality is achieved by offsetting them with the purchase of carbon credits generated by projects that help remove or reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Currently, AVF Beltrame is in line with the sustainability targets set for 2024 and with the decarbonization plan for 2030.