Steel production accounts for around seven per cent of global CO2 emissions. There are therefore intensive efforts underway to drastically reduce these emissions. Whether such transitions are also socially sustainable has been investigated for the first time by researchers from the University of Graz and Joanneum Research. Their conclusion: the social impacts depend heavily on location and on supplier companies. The study results have been published in the journal Sustainable Metallurgy.
Sociologist Markus Hadler from the University of Graz, together with Michael Brenner-Fließer and Ingrid Kaltenegger from the Institute for Climate, Energy Systems and Society at Joanneum Research, took a close look at the steel industry in Belgium, China, and the USA. "If you use waste wood instead of coal to heat blast furnaces, for instance, this undoubtedly leads to CO2 savings, but not necessarily to positive effects on society," says Hadler.
Read the full report and the researchers' publication at uni-graz.at
