Steelwatch launches new tool to track steelmaker climate transformations

8 December, 2025 – International climate organisation SteelWatch has released a new data tool, the Steelmaker Transformation Tracker, to separate decarbonisation spin from real actions, and support more accurate analysis of how a select group of 22 steelmakers across 12 countries are performing on climate and social commitments.

The steel sector is a major driver of climate change, and ironmaking in coal-based blast furnaces currently accounts for 90% of emissions from the sector. However, while many companies talk up green plans, emissions remain underreported, and progress on decarbonisation is difficult to assess. Information buried in company reports is now easily accessible and comparable for the first time. 

This tracker monitors information from companies, supplemented by GEM and other publicly-available sources, to track emissions, decarbonisation commitments, dependency on coal, the shift to green steel, and impacts on people and society over time, and allows companies to be compared against one another. These are the critical metrics to pay attention to on climate actions in the sector. 

The data and charts released today shows that:

• Coal remains a huge problem for steel companies. Both emissions and the number of coal-based blast furnaces continue to rise, but as the majority of the 22 companies in this tracker don’t even report their coal consumption, real consumption is likely to be significantly higher than what SteelWatch is tracking. 
• While there is an existing fleet of near-zero-emissions-capable ironmaking assets (gas DRI), green iron and green steel is still not scaling as it needs to. In particular, consumption and production of green iron still sits at zero. 
• There are little signs of recent progress, with trend lines generally flat on climate performance. Occupational health and safety and air pollution metrics are trending better, but there is a lot more to do. 

The Steelmaker Transformation Tracker covers countries headquartered in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Luxembourg, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Türkiye and the USA, and can be found at: www.steelwatch.org/tracker 

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Contacts:

Greg McNevin
Communications, SteelWatch (Australia, AEST)
[email protected], +61 475 247 044

Gozde Incegul
Communications, SteelWatch (Türkiye, CET)
[email protected], +90 537 583 5442

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