Green & Global Warming - Feature Sample

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Green & Global Warming WJI has done numerous “green” features, but this time the focus is on sustainability, not products. Increasingly, such efforts have focused on carbon emissions, pushed by global warming, many targeting the ultimate goal: carbon-neutral/net-zero. This feature also cites some challenges and actions—large and small—that some manufacturers are taking.

ArcelorMittal’s green ‘Steelanol’ bio-project at Gent plant The sustainable ethanol produced at the Steelanol plant, ArcelorMittal Belgium is one step closer to a key goal for the first commercial product of ArcelorMittal’s Carbalyst® its Steelanol project: it has installed four bioreactors at its Gent steel plant to capture industrial gases in the steelmakfamily of recycled carbon chemicals, can be used as fuel ing process and convert them into sustainable ethanol. for transport or as a building block for producing chemPer the company, the bioreactors are the central element icals. The process can not only use industrial gases from of the installation. Each one consists of a tank containtoday’s steel production methods, it can adapt as indusing liquid, nutrients and naturally occurring micro-ortry transitions to future steel production technologies with ganisms. A key element increased green hydrogen of the process, created by input.

LanzaTech, is to mix the With commissioning and gas well into the liquid, first production expected in enabling the micro-organ2022, this marks an important isms to complete the transstep towards the circular use of formation of the carbon carbon and the end of singlecontaining gas to ethanol in use carbon, whereby gases are the most efficient condino longer regarded as waste tions. To aim for maximum but as raw materials. circularity, a water treat“This technology contributes ment installation enables the to strengthening our global re-use of water, the recovery leadership in terms of CO2 and of valuable nutrients and the Bio-reactors are installed at ArcelorMittal Belgium’s plant in energy efficiency in the steel Gent. Photo ArcelorMittal. production of energy from sector,” said ArcelorMittal obtained biogas.

Belgium CEO Manfred Van The next phase will be to Vlierberghe. “Steelanol is a install pipes and connect the equipment. The €165 million strong asset towards our Europe-wide goal of reducing Steelanol plant, the first of its kind in Europe, will produce CO2 emissions by 2030, and of achieving carbon-neutral 80 million liters of ethanol a year, nearly half of Belgium’s steelmaking by 2050.” annual demand in a market for renewable ethanol with a Added Lanza Tech CEO Jennifer Holmgren, “This large growth potential. The technology was developed by significant milestone brings us closer to creating a circular LanzaTech, a long-time partner of ArcelorMittal, together carbon economy at a time when all sustainable solutions with Primetals Technologies and E4tech. are required to solve our climate crisis.”

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The ‘Scope‘ dilemma: can industry be held to the 3rd degree?

Three scopes that categorize greenhouse emissions stem back to the Green House Gas Protocol of 2001, Scopes 1 and 2 are straightforward, but Scope 3 can be the proverbial 900-pound GHG gorilla, as is the 1.5°C target. This report presents edited excerpts from multiple sources, from the Carbon Trust and the World Resources Institute to the EPA and CNBC.

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Emissions, which was developed in partnership with the The goal of the greenhouse gas (GHG) control, per Carbon Council for the GHG Protocol Corporate Value the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, is to limit global Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. It warming to less than 2°C of pre-industrial times, with the is the parent document that is an internationally accepted ultimate target now tabbed at 1.5°C. See p. 54 for some method to enable GHG management of companies. The perspectives on the long-term outlook of this happening 182-page document presents exhaustive detail. The followwithout significant technical advances. The main target ing slice provides a sense of just how much that can be. is carbon dioxide, the primary GHG that traps heat in the “For each of the 15 Scope 3 categories, companies are atmosphere. The EPA reports that in 2019, carbon dioxide required to calculate emissions of all the GHGs required accounted for 80% of such emissions, most from use of by the United Nations Framework fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and oil) for Convention on Climate Change energy and transportation. The categories (UNFCCC)/Kyoto Protocol at the are classified as follows. time the inventory is being compiled.

Scope 1. This category for GHG Technical Guidance National reporting guidelines under emissions covers those that a company for Calculating the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol directly makes. These can range from (version 1.0) Scope 3 Emissions require that specific GHGs be included boilers to vehicles.

Supplement to the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting & Reporting Standard in national GHG emissions inventoScope 2. These GHG emissions are ries. To remain consistent with national indirect ones, from the generation of inventory practices, the GHG Protocol purchased energy. requires that these same GHGs also be Scope 1 and 2 assessments are generreported in corporate GHG emissions ally straightforward, and many of the inventories. Originally, the requireworld’s largest companies now account ments of the UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol, and report on them. Frequent headlines and therefore of the GHG Protocol, announce that companies will be carbon were limited to a set of six individual neutral (also called net-zero) by a given GHGs or classes of GHGs: carbon date to what is covered by Scopes 1 and dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous 2. Accomplishing these goals is no small oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons task. But as laudable as they are, experts (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluosay that, unto themselves, they will not achieve the 1.5°C ride (SF6). However, changes to international accounting goal. That’s where the next level comes in, and even then it and reporting rules under the UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol may not be enough. now also require the reporting of another GHG, nitrogen Scope 3. This scope, for indirect emissions not part of trifluoride (NF3).”

Scope 2, includes both a company’s suppliers and customAt this time, Scope 3 is deemed optional in reporting. ers as well as product life cycles. For many industries, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Scope 3 can represent the largest share of GHS emissions, Gensler has said he wants to require carbon disclosures, although that is not the case for steel producers. See p. 52. but as of press time no such date has been set.

Per the Carbon Trust, Scope 3 includes: purchased goods Morgan Stanley Corporate International (MSCI) notes and services; business travel; employee commuting; waste that just 18% of its constituents report their Scope 3 emisdisposal; use of sold products; transportation and distribusions, and of those, they typically report on two categories: tion, upstream and downstream; investments and leased business travel and purchased goods and services. assets and franchises. These factors are by far the most Many companies have announced goals of being net-zero difficult to assess, let alone control, as they include both a by or before 2040, but that would require significant company’s suppliers and customers. advances in controlling Scope 3.

The definition of Scope 3 emissions is laid out by the In a CNBC report, Cynthia Cummis, director of private Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a joint initiative of World sector climate mitigation for the World Resources Resources Institute and WBCSD. Achieving 1.5°C is an Institute, declared that Scope 3 must be part of reporting. ambitious goal, and it is one that is often said must include “Companies will eventually be held accountable for these Scope 3 to make 1.5°C feasible. targets, and they usually include Scope 3, so this has to be One tool to help companies understand the requiresolved,” she said. ments is the Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3

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