SteelWatch Corporate Scorecard Methodology
Purpose and scope
The SteelWatch Corporate Scorecard has been developed to compare and contrast the transition journeys of 18 different steel producers across eleven different countries that produce steel through a blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) process.
The Scorecard is designed to:
- Compare companies against one another on a common set of transition indicators.
- Set a clear bar for what good looks like in terms of coal phase-down, climate targets, green iron use and social and environmental responsibility.
- Provide strongly interpreted, company-by-company comparisons that media, investors, policymakers and civil society can use in different geographies.
The Scorecard builds upon Steelmaker Transformation Tracker, the first version of which was released at the end of 2025, and provides core data for financial year 2024, company by company. The definitions of sustainability metrics that are turned into scores in the Scorecard can be found in the Tracker methodology. The Tracker data is largely based on each company’s annual reports and financial reports for FY2024 and other published documentation. Additional data covering blast furnace relinings, future announcements, SBTi and ResponsibleSteel certification was considered until October 2025. Projects announced since, have not been incorporated into company scores, but where possible, have been included in the report’s descriptive elements.
Acknowledgements
SteelWatch is grateful to partners and the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) members, including from the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Lead the Charge (LtC), Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) for invaluable contributions to data assessment and methodology development. Responsibility for the methodology and scores rests with SteelWatch.
Company selection
The Scorecard covers 18 BF–BOF steel producers. These companies were selected using two criteria:
- Size: companies are drawn from the WorldSteel list of the 100 largest crude steel producers, focusing on larger steelmakers across the largest steelmaking countries.
- Geographic diversity: a maximum of two BF–BOF producers per country is included. This ensures coverage of at least one company from each of the 10 largest steel-producing countries.
The 18 selected companies form a geographically spread snapshot of significant BF–BOF producers that together account for close to a quarter of global crude steel production.
Categories and weights
Each company is scored across five categories, which together are intended to capture the core elements of a credible timely transition to near-zero-emissions operations:
- Phasing out coal – 25%
- Scaling green – 25%
- Climate performance – 15%
- Targets and transparency – 15%
- Social and environmental responsibility – 20%
Within each category, companies are evaluated on a small set of scoring questions/items. Each question/item has:
- A direction (“the more the better” or “the less the better”),
- A scoring range (e.g. 0–5 points), and
- A specific scoring function (linear, exponential or rate-of-change based) that takes Tracker indicator values as inputs.
- A readiness gap, expressed as the difference between the current score and the maximum possible score.
The total score is expressed out of 100 points. The total score effectively reflects the ability of a particular company to structurally shift its business model and operational reality to deliver the transition to near-zero emissions steel. A company scoring 100% would in fact exit the Scorecard.
Treatment of company size
The Scorecard is designed to focus on behaviour and direction of travel, not simply on which companies are biggest.
Two scoring questions/items are based on absolute metrics, and therefore sensitive to company size, these include:
- The capacity of operating blast furnaces, as a proxy for the sheer scale of coal-based production and climate impact.
- The volume of green iron consumed, as a proxy for a company’s contribution to building a new, near-zero-emissions value chain.
All other scoring questions/items are effectively size-agnostic. This includes:
- Intensity metrics (e.g. GHG per tonne of steel, NOx/SOx/PM per tonne of steel),
- Trends over time (e.g. whether GHG intensity, coal use or air pollution are rising or falling), or
- Percentages and shares (e.g. share of capacity that is near-zero-emissions-capable, share of capacity with ResponsibleSteel certification).
This ensures that the scorecard avoids penalising large producers purely because of their size. However, it aims to reflect the structural transition risk of large blast furnace capacity.
Geographic differentiation and “common but differentiated responsibilities”
SteelWatch recognises the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (CBDR–RC), recognised in the Paris Agreement. But the geographic diversity of covered companies, the differences between country of headquarters and countries of operations, and more broadly, the lack of consensus on what would be a sector-level “fair” share of the planetary carbon budget for each jurisdiction would make it impossible to integrate CBDR–RC in any meaningful way into this methodology.
At the same time, many indicators focus on direction and pace of change within each company (e.g. trends in GHG intensity, coal consumption, air pollution). This means companies are partly assessed relative to their own past performance, rather than purely against one another or against country-level baselines.
Scrap and why it is not scored directly
Scrap plays a vital role in reducing emissions, but global scrap availability is limited in the near and medium term. The Scorecard does not penalise nor directly reward scrap use as a standalone indicator. However, scrap use would still likely improve scores through a lowering of the greenhouse gas intensity of production within the climate performance category.
In contrast, the Scorecard also incorporates current plans to retire and replace blast furnace capacity, as well as current green iron procurement.
How indicators are scored:
1. Phasing out coal (25 points available)
This category captures both the scale of coal-based production and the direction of travel:
Table A1: Indicators for Phasing out coal and their maximum score
| 1.1 Size of blast furnace fleet Capacity of operating blast furnace fleet in million tonnes of iron per annum. | 5 points |
| 1.2 Blast furnaces under construction Is the company building new blast furnace capacity? | 5 points |
| 1.3 Blast furnace investments Has the company recently completed investments in blast furnace capacity, or announced upcoming ones? | 5 points |
| 1.4 Blast furnace retirement The share of blast furnace capacity with retirement announced. | 5 points |
| 1.5 Coal consumption trend Has absolute coal consumption (in million tonnes) declined over a four-year period? | 5 points |
| 25 points |
Companies with smaller BF fleets, no new BFs or re-linings, clear retirement plans and declining coal use, score higher.
Companies that are expanding or maintaining large fleets without retirement plans score lower. Similarly, companies that do not disclose coal consumption also score lower.
2. Scaling green (25 points available)
This category looks for evidence that companies are beginning to build the future steel system:
Table A2: Indicators for Scaling green and their maximum score
| 2.1 Green iron consumption Volume of green iron consumed, in million tonnes. | 5 points |
| 2.2 Green iron share Share of green iron out of total ore-based iron consumption. | 5 points |
| 2.3 Green iron capable production capacity The percentage of total iron production capacity that is near-zero-emissions-capable, either operational or under development (min FID stage). | 10 points |
| 2.4 Renewable energy uptake Share of renewable energy in total energy consumption, primarily used to power iron and steelmaking processes. | 5 points |
| 25 points |
In practice, given the very early stage of green iron deployment, most companies currently score zero or near zero on these indicators. This category will become increasingly important over time as projects move from announcements to FID to operation and begin to materially change companies’ scores.
3. Climate performance (15 points available)
This category combines:
Table A3: Indicators for Climate performance and their maximum score
| 3.1 Current emissions intensity The tonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases emitted per tonne of steel produced (scope 1 and 2 emissions only). | 12 points |
| 3.2 Emissions intensity trend The trend in GHG emissions per tonne of steel over a four-year period. | 3 points |
| 15 points |
Lower GHG intensity earns higher scores. A nonlinear function is used so that further reductions at already low intensities are rewarded more strongly. The trend indicator rewards companies whose GHG intensity is consistently decreasing over time; companies with no improvement or with missing data score poorly.
4. Targets and transparency (15 points available))
This category scores whether companies:
| 4.1 Net-zero target Whether the company has a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. | 3 points |
| 4.2 SBTi-verified emissions reduction target Whether the company has SBTi-verified 1.5C targets. | 7 points |
| 4.3 Transparency & data disclosure The extent to which the company meets 12 key public disclosure indicators. | 5 points |
| 15 points |
5. Social and environmental responsibility (20 points available)
This category assesses:
Table A5: Indicators for Social and environmental responsibility and their maximum score
| 5.1 Health & safety trend Has the company reduced the amount of work-place injuries over the last three years? | 4 points |
| 5.2 Air pollution trend A combined score based on the rate of improvement for SOx and NOx gases and particulate matter per tonne of steel. | 6 points |
| 5.3 ResponsibleSteel Core Site certification Percentage of steel production capacity covered by ResponsibleSteel Core Site certification. | 5 points |
| 5.4 ResponsibleSteel Certified Steel The number of ResponsibleSteel Certified Steel certificates | 5 points |
| 20 points |
Because methodologies for OH&S and air pollution reporting vary widely between companies, these indicators are used to score trends over time, not absolute levels. What matters is whether a company is improving, stagnating or deteriorating.
As of today, ResponsibleSteel is the only steel-specific international standard that also considers non-climate impacts of steel production, for example labour rights, responsible sourcing of input materials or water stewardship. SteelWatch is a member organisation of ResponsibleSteel, and in the context of the Steelmaker Transformation Tracker and SteelWatch Corporate Scorecard, values ResponsibleSteel certification as a proxy for the level of engagement steelmakers commit to on their non-climate impacts.
Indicators not used for scoring
Some indicators are tracked but not used in the Scorecard score, because they would either duplicate existing measures, be too weak as metrics, or are not yet available across all companies (e.g. just transition, policy engagement, whistleblowing/ grievance mechanisms, ESG controversies). They remain of interest for qualitative analysis but do not affect the numerical scores.
Table A6: Scoring method for all the indicators in each scoring category
