OneSteel Sustainability Report 2010 (PDF) - Arrium

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18 OneSteel Sustainability Report 2010 Customer & Market 1 2 3 4 5 6 Our Approach Like Safety, Customer is also a core value at OneSteel. Whilst explicitly defined as meeting our promise to customers today, in order to develop sustainable market offers of the future, OneSteel is constantly engaging in industry and customer partnerships to better understand, further develop and communicate steel’s role as a sustainable solution. We recognise the steelmaking process has some significant inherent environmental impacts; however OneSteel’s approach involves the adoption of specific in-market sustainability initiatives to address these. Such areas include life cycle analysis, waste reduction in use, sustainable construction design, product certification and compliance and industry communication and collaboration. OneSteel adopts a proactive approach to understanding and addressing customers and other stakeholders’ sustainability perceptions and concerns relating to steel. Our Performance In 2009, OneSteel collaborated with the WorldSteel Association (WSA) and commissioned an analysis of Australian stakeholders including customers, conducted independently by Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg. This analysis and its international equivalents have shown us that our customers and stakeholders understand steel to be an essential part of society but that steel is sometimes thought of as part of the ‘problem’ rather than the ‘solution’. However, steel is a product with inherent sustainability advantages. Its strength and recyclability are two key factors that allow steel to be one of the most versatile products in the world and a part of building a sustainable future. Over the last financial year, OneSteel Recycling (Australia) collected 1.7 million tonnes of scrap steel by recycling. This helped enable more than half our sales (1.3 million tonnes) to be produced from recycled scrap, mainly via OneSteel’s three Electric Arc Furnaces. This resulted in an average recycled content of OneSteel products produced and sold of approximately 55 percent (excluding OneSteel’s internal scrap but including post industrial scrap). While this level of recycling is certainly significant and important to OneSteel, the actual proportion of recycled content is limited due to the long service life of steel products. For long products used in construction this is particularly the case, leading to a shortage of available scrap compared to steel demand, not only in Australia but around the world. This means that a significant portion of our steel must be produced from raw materials such iron ore and coking coal via Blast Furnaces such as OneSteel’s in Whyalla. Steel life cycle RAW MATERIALS Raw materials Steel production recycling Manufacturing use phase Steel Scrap Diagram shows the life cycle of steel from raw material extraction through to recycling.
19 Customer & Market Customer & Market 1 2 3 4 5 6 Our Actions to Build a Sustainable Future OneSteel has adopted a scientific life cycle based approach to encourage better sustainability outcomes for steel in our marketplace. Life cycle thinking requires consideration of the environmental and social externalities incurred from a product’s raw material extraction and manufacture through to its final disposal (see diagram on previous page). In steelmaking this is referred to as the impacts of a product from ‘cradle to grave’ or ‘cradle to cradle’ when recycling or re-use is employed. At OneSteel, life cycle thinking encapsulates Life Cycle Inventory, Life Cycle Analysis and promoting the Waste Hierarchy. Life Cycle Inventory & Analysis Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) defines the inputs required to produce a product, its use and key outputs produced. In FY10 OneSteel provided a set of LCI data at the major manufacturing plant level for energy consumption and greenhouse gas production to the World Steel Association for their Climate Action Program. We are also currently updating LCI data at the construction product level for around 60% of our total production to help enable the long-term benefits of using steel in construction to be assessed. OneSteel’s LCI data will feed into a Building Product Innovation Council (BPIC) project that intends to produce a publicly available database of LCI data for the major Australian building products from 2011. LCI is the starting point for Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) which is a process for assessing the environmental impact of a product from the time of its creation to its post-consumption end-of-life. LCA provides a quantified environmental account for the whole life of a given product. This is an imperative consideration for the steel industry as the highembodied energy, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions during steel manufacture, is often counterbalanced by the low environmental impact of the product during its extended use phase. Steel products in construction for example, are highly durable and easily re-used or recycled thus extending the product’s lifespan and significantly reducing environmental impact of having to produce ‘new’ steel from raw materials. See right for an example of OneSteel’s application of improving recycled steel’s life cycle performance using patented Polymer Injection Technology. Onesteel is currently updating lci data at the construction product level for around 60% of our total production to help enable the long-term benefits of using steel in construction to be assessed Case study Polymer Injection Technology To minimise energy use, electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking facilities use coke or anthracite in slag foaming to insulate molten steel surface, keeping it hot for longer. The University of New South Wales (UNSW) has demonstrated that polymers (for example, rubber from tyres) can replace some of the coke within the EAF steelmaking process and increase the volume of foamy slag. The UNSW developed the idea that polymers contain an essential source of carbon required for slag foaming in EAF steelmaking. This led to a three-year technology development and testing program in partnership with OneSteel at its Sydney EAF facility. Regulatory approval followed, in 2008, for use of the polymer carbon in steel mills. At OneSteel’s Sydney Steel Mill, under controlled condition trials, polymer injection technology reduced electrical energy consumption per billet tonne from 424 kWh to 412 kWh, reduced the amount of carbon injectant required from 464 kg/heat to 406 kg/heat, and improved the number of liquid tonnes per power on time minute from 2.12 to 2.20 tonnes/minute. Polymer injection of rubber sourced from waste tyres is now in commercial operation at two of OneSteel’s EAF facilities, in Sydney and Laverton, Australia. Extrapolating savings measured under controlled conditions at Sydney to total annual production means a carbon dioxide saving equivalent of the removal of approximately 4,000 cars from the road. Polymer Injection Technology (PIT) has recently been recognised as a mechanism to enhance the sustainability of steel by the GBCA through its GreenStar® scheme.
Page 1 and 2: uilding a sustainable future sustai
Page 3 and 4: 1 Contents Contents IFC Preface 2 A
Page 5 and 6: 3 Sustainability Governance Sustain
Page 7 and 8: 5 Managing Director’s Introductio
Page 9 and 10: 7 Sustainability Drivers & Core Val
Page 11 and 12: 9 Scorecard Scorecard Sustainabilit
Page 13 and 14: 11 Safety & People Safety & People
Page 15 and 16: Safety & People OneSteel’s LTIFR
Page 17 and 18: 15 Safety & People Safety & People
Page 19: 17 Safety & People Safety & People
Page 23 and 24: 21 Customer & Market Customer & Mar
Page 25 and 26: 23 Customer & Market Customer & Mar
Page 27 and 28: 25 Environment Environment Fitting
Page 29 and 30: 5 6400 Greenhouse (Mt Co2-e) 4 3 2
Page 31 and 32: 29 Environment Environment 1 2 3 4
Page 33 and 34: A fauna monitoring study was undert
Page 35 and 36: 33 Community Sponsorship by Laverto
Page 37 and 38: 35 Community Community 1 2 3 4 Wara
Page 39 and 40: 37 Economic Economic 1 2 Actions an
Page 41 and 42: 39 GRI Index STANDARD DISCLOSURES P
Page 43 and 44: d e s i g n e d a n d p r o d u c e

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