Nucor seeks net-zero carbon status

Nucor Corp. has revealed its net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) targets for 2050 and has established a new interim target for 2030.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based recycled-content steelmaker, which also owns the David J. Joseph (DJJ) network of scrap yards, says its GHG intensity targets are defined by the Global Steel Climate Council’s (GSCC) “Steel Climate Standard.”

The GSCC, consisting largely of scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmakers, designed its standard to align with the Paris Climate Agreement’s emission reduction goals for the steel sector by 2050, and with the International Energy Agency’s “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy System” glidepath (IEA NZE).

“We are the North American leader in sustainable steelmaking, and these targets further highlight our leadership role in developing clean solutions for the entire steel industry, as well as empowering our customers to meet their business and environmental goals successfully,” says Nucor President and CEO Leon Topalian says.

“In recent years, we have made purposeful investments to increase the availability of carbon-free electricity, and to support other emerging technologies that will help lead the way to a clean industrial future.”

Nucor's net zero 2050 and interim 2030 targets include Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions from the production of hot-rolled steel as defined by the GSCC. According to Nucor, this makes it the first diversified steelmaker in the U.S. to set GHG reduction targets encompassing all three scopes.

The new targets are more ambitious than Nucor’s previous target of a 35 percent reduction in steel mill Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG intensity by 2030, using 2015 as a baseline, which was announced in 2021.

The company says it already is one of the cleanest steel producers in the world, referring to a circular production process that uses an average of nearly 80 percent recycled scrap and has one-third the GHG emissions intensity as compared with the average traditional extractive steelmaking process using a blast furnace.

“We believe that transparency in reporting emissions and routinely updating emissions reduction plans are each important to successfully address climate change," says Greg Murphy, a Nucor executive vice president and its general counsel. These targets and the details of our plans to achieve them will provide our customers, investors and policymakers with a clear roadmap of where Nucor is going and how we plan to get there.”

As to how to meet those goals, the company points to increasing the use of clean electricity, carbon capture and sequestration and near zero GHG iron making and says it also will utilize technologies to reduce its consumption of injection and charge carbon and will reduce the use of natural gas in its production processes.