Chalibria is born, the carbon neutral certified steel of AFV Beltrame Group, a steel group with 1.7 billion euros in turnover (balance sheet 2021), 7 plants in Italy, France, Switzerland and Romania, 2,500 employees and a commercial presence in 40 countries , for 2.3 million tons of steel per year. «We are the first European manufacturer of long structural steels to offer this type of solution», says Raffaele Ruella, chief financial officer and managing director of the group: «We are able to sell the entire range of products like Chalibria. If the customer wants it ». With a price proportional to the value.
How CO2 is offset
Chalibria has a carbon neutrality obtained by offsetting the CO2 emissions generated by the value chain, through the purchase of carbon credits on a voluntary basis, in line with the PAS2060 standard and the ISO14064-1 certification certified by Rina. A process that was born, for the company, in 2015, and begins with the measurement of total emissions. “Those generated during the group’s activities are below the international and European sector averages: 570 kg of CO2 per ton of rolled steel (Scope 1,2 and 3 upstream), about 75% less than the emissions of the steel industry global and 15% less than the European average for electric furnace steel emissions. But the company intends to improve even more and has set itself the goal of reducing its emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2015 ”, explains Ruella.
Integrated strategy
Chalibria, from the Latin “chalybs” (steel) and “libra” (balance), is part of a broader decarbonization strategy, based on pillars coinciding with Beltrame’s DNA – which produces steel by melting scrap in electric furnaces – and integrated in the company’s business: “We have approved a 500 million euro plan, from 2022 to 2025, which includes investments related to decarbonization,” explains Ruella.
Efficiency, with the reduction of production costs, is pursued through the modernization of the ovens, the creation of heat recovery systems and new digital control systems. The circular economy is implemented with the readmission of waste into the production process, so today 90% is recovered. For the use of clean energy, the group is developing plants through Ppa, as in the Renewability consortium launched this year in Italy with a shared investment of 30 million euros with other companies: “We are also evaluating other initiatives”, adds Ruella, which specifies: «By 2030 for our plants in Italy and Romania 40% of the energy will be from renewable sources». The construction of a photovoltaic park near the Târgoviște plant in Romania is already on the launch pad. Finally, hydrogen: the furnaces of the group are already set up to use it as a fuel mixed with natural gas.
More and more investments in decarbonisation
“Chalibria is the way to show in a transparent manner the progress we intend to implement on a daily basis, a commitment that we undertake in front of all our stakeholders, the result of two years of work that have seen us collaborate with various companies and consultants, among the main ones, strategic partners Roland Berger and Alperia. Steel is a special material, infinitely recyclable and therefore intrinsically sustainable, but producing it generates emissions and requires a high energy expenditure. The group intends to invest more and more in minimizing emissions ”, comments Carlo Beltrame, head of group business development at Beltrame and CEO of France and Romania.