Companies in the steel industry are working on measures to realize carbon neutrality (CN), and steel trading companies have each been pursuing new business models in their own unique ways. Some of those pursuits include providing platforms to support reducing CO2 emissions of customers, promoting CN in terms of processing, and also developing new technologies and businesses related to CN. Adapting to the trend toward CN may enable trading companies to provide new value in addition to the value they provide through trading steel products.
Mitsui & Co., Sumitomo Corporation and Marubeni-Itochu Steel are pursuing providing platforms that enable their customers to visualize the greenhouse gases (GHG), including CO2, emitted from steel products. This form of business has been attracting interest from customer industries that are facing a pressing need to reduce CO2 emissions, such as the automotive component and can manufacturing fields.
Mitsui & Co. has been providing a platform called ‘e-dash’, which calculates the amount of ‘scope 1, 2, and 3’ GHG emitted by individual companies or plants. From August of last year the company has also began providing a platform called ‘LCA Plus’, which calculates the emissions from individual products. The platforms are jointly handled by the Iron & Steel Products Business Unit and the Performance Materials Business Unit. One of the notable characteristics of the platforms is that by partnering with the Sustainable Management Promotion Organization (SuMPO), which is the only institution in Japan which provides carbon footprint-related certifications based on ISO, the company has realized offering emissions calculation tools that are based on international standards. In February the company held their first webinar for the platforms, and they are pursuing further increasing recognition.
Sumitomo Corporation has been conducting verification experiments of their comprehensive platform called ‘SynApp’ in partnership with small to medium-sized companies, and the company is pursuing actually implementing a format for visualizing CO2 emissions. SynApp is a platform that aims to provide solutions to various challenges faced by their customers, such as matching companies with sheet metal processing/shearing capabilities with customers in need of those capabilities, offering solutions to optimize logistics and also supporting the buying/selling of machine tools. The actual operations of the platform are handled by Sumitomo Corporation Global Metals. Sumitomo Corporation’s platform utilizes their strength as a general trading company to provide solutions for a variety of needs, including those related to CN.
Marubeni-Itochu Steel is collaborating with NTT Communications to combine their expertise as a steel trading company with sophisticated ICT (information and communications technology). From the first half of the next fiscal year they will begin providing a cloud-based service. It will be interesting to see how the company will utilize this platform to strengthen their relationships with customers and how they will develop the platform into a source of revenue.
JFE Shoji has been pursuing CN by utilizing their own businesses. In cooperation with JFE Engineering subsidiary Urban Energy, they have succeeded in converting all the electricity used for steel product processing at JFE Shoji Coil Center Shizuoka Plant (in Fuji, Shizuoka) and for its office to those from renewable energy sources. Shizuoka Plant handles a high ratio of automotive products, and it is significant that the Plant became the first domestic CC to realize CN.
An increasing number of companies have also been pursuing conducting businesses through developing CN-related technologies. Nippon Steel Trading has invested in the Norwegian startup company Hystar, which has innovative technologies in the field of water electrolyzers used for producing hydrogen. This has enabled the company to establish a foothold in the water electrolyzer field, which going forward is a market that is expected to grow. Metal One has formed a business alliance with US decarbonization engineering company Green Energy Systems, and will propose to steelmakers a technology that recovers heat and CO2 through the co-combustion of plant exhaust gas and oxygen.
Shinsho Corporation will invest in a UMI decarbonization fund to support the development of new technologies and businesses. Hanwa has entered the solar carport business field. Solar carports are steel frame structures that function as car sheds/ports for vehicles of various sizes with solar power generation devices mounted on the roofs.
