BMW to cut carbon output from its steel production from 2025

BMW plans to source steel produced with green power from Sweden.

The new initiative comes as a collaboration with Swedish startup H2 Green Steel, which uses hydrogen and only green power from renewable energies for steel production.

Unlike conventional processes that rely on coke for making steel, H2 Green Steel employs hydrogen produced using green power to remove the oxygen from the iron oxide. This innovative process produces almost no CO₂ at all, only water - thereby avoiding 95% of the CO₂ emissions normally produced.

A specially built hydrogen power plant, which uses water and green power from across the region, will be directly integrated into the steel production plant, while coal green power will be used for the remainder of the manufacturing process.

In addition to the delivery of steel produced using green power, the BMW Group and H2 Green Steel have also agreed to create a closed-loop material cycle. H2 Green Steel will take back sheet metal remnants, such as those produced at press plants when doors are punched out, and will process them in such a way that they can be shipped back to the plants as new steel rolls. In this way, raw materials can be used multiple times in a circular economy and natural resources protected. Secondary steel is said to lower CO₂ emissions by an average of 50% to 80% compared to primary material.