Steel Industry Embarks on Climate Data Collection

The World Steel Association plans to finish the first phase of a carbon dioxide emissions data collection effort at the end of the year, the trade association announced last week.

The data will be used to show progress on reducing emissions and share best practices in a sector that is responsible for as much as 5 percent of global emissions.

"The World Steel Association will hold individual plant data completely confidential and we will be establishing a very powerful and detailed database to help our members know where they are in relation to the averages either in their region or the world," Ian Christmas, the group's director general, said in a statement. "Every steel company and steel-producing country is at a different starting point. Our vision is that over time there will be a convergence towards best practice and this will have a material impact on our global emissions."

The steel industry's global sector approach rests on four pillars: sharing of best practices; research and development, finding low carbon applications; and engaging steel producers and creating benchmarks based on successful data collection.

The announcement comes the same day the trade association released its 2008 Sustainability Report. The report was based on a survey of 500 stakeholders throughout the world. The three development priorities are safety and health, climate change and steel recycling.