Strengthening the circular economy and secondary raw materials
FEhS Institute welcomes the EU Commission's 2024-2029 policy guidelines
Duisburg, September 5, 2024. Pursuing the objectives of the European Green Deal in a Clean Industrial Deal, create a new law on the circular economy to intensify the use of secondary raw materials and optimize public procurement: The FEhS Building Materials Institute considers the planned measures in the EU Commission's Political Guidelines 2024-2029 to be trendsetting. In many respects, they are in line with the FEhS Institute's core demands for sustainable resource management and the key points of a legal opinion on the EU Public Procurement Directive commissioned by the FEhS Institute and the European association EUROSLAG in 2020. The legal opinion on the EU Public Procurement Directive calls for specifications for a circular public procurement system, such as the comprehensive approval of secondary building materials and their conditional preference in public procurement. Among other things, the fundamental importance of environmental criteria in the award of public contracts should be enshrined, “aspects of environmental protection, the circular economy and resource conservation” should be mandatory in the specification of services and the non-approval of secondary materials should be justified in the contract award notices. Thomas Reiche, Managing Director of the FEhS Institute and Chairman of EUROSLAG: “We are optimistic about the guidelines presented by the EU Commission. This is considerable progress compared to 2020, when the objectives formulated in our report were not heard by the EU Commission. We are working with our partners at all levels to ensure that these plans are put into practice.” The FEhS Institute has been campaigning for many years at the political interfaces for improved framework conditions and the sustainable use of products containing slag. Building materials and fertilizers from the steel industry have been making an important contribution to the conservation of natural resources for many decades. In the period from 2000 to 2023 alone, the use ferrous slag avoided the extraction of around 1.2 billion tons of natural rock across Europe About EUROSLAG EUROSLAG brings together 26 organizations and companies from 17 countries, including the FEhS Institute. As a European network for the production, use and development of ferrous slags and slag-based products, EUROSLAG's activities focus on research and technology, European standardization, and internal and external communication. Every two years EUROSLAG organizes the Slag Conference together with national partners. About the FEhS Institute For more than seven decades, the FEhS Building Materials Institute has been Europe's leading address for research, testing and consulting on building materials and fertilizers made from ferrous and steel slags. As a modern service provider, the experts are a sought-after partner for member companies and customers from all over the world with seven laboratories, the KompetenzForum Bau and a network of industry associations, authorities, standardization bodies and institutions from science and research. www.euroslag2024.eu www.euroslag.com www.fehs.de www.rohstoff-schlacke.deFerrous slag-based products replace 44 million tons of natural rock
EUROSLAG figures for 2023
Duisburg, 16 July 2024: In 2023, 35.8 million tons of ferrous slag were produced in the European Union and Great Britain. Of this, 19.9 million tons were blast furnace slag (BFS) and 15.9 million tons were steelwork slag (SWS). Thanks to an additional 0.6 million tons of stockpile reduction, a total of 20.5 million tons of BFS and 13.3 million tonnes of SWS were used primarily as building materials and fertilizers as well as in metallurgy. As a result, the by-products of the steel industry avoided the extraction of 44 million tons of natural rock across Europe last year and the emission of around 12 million tons of CO2 using granulated blast furnace slag instead of Portland cement clinker in cement. In the period from 2000 to 2023, a total of 1.17 billion tons of natural rock and 416 million tons of the climate-damaging gas were saved. 99 percent of blast furnace slag was used as a building material: 18.3 million tons in cement and 2 million tons as aggregate. 0.2 million tons went into other applications. In the case of steelwork slag, 8.8 million tons were used in road construction, 0.7 million tons in hydraulic engineering, 1.3 million tons in fertilizers, 1.7 million tons for metallurgical work, 0.6 million tons in cement and as a concrete additive and 0.2 million tons for other applications. The conservation of natural raw materials using ferrous slags between 2000 and 2023 is made up of the substitution of a total of 752 million tons of limestone, clay and sand for clinker production with granulated blast furnace slag in cement, 405 million tons of natural stone with slag-based aggregates in concrete and road construction and 12 million tons of natural lime fertilizer with converter and ladle slag in fertilizers. Thomas Reiche, Chairman of EUROSLAG and Managing Director of FEhS Building Materials Institute: "Despite the tensions on the European steel market, ferrous slags were once again able to make an important contribution to resource conservation, climate protection and the circular economy in 2023. We are continuing to look ahead and will be taking an in-depth look at current topics at this year's EUROSLAG conference in Bilbao under the title "Slags for the Future, the Future of the Slags". This includes the decarbonization of the steel industry and the corresponding 'new' slags as well as the resulting necessary adjustments to national and European regulations." About EUROSLAG EUROSLAG brings together 26 organizations and companies from 17 countries, including the FEhS Institute. As a European network for the production, use and development of ferrous slags and slag-based products, EUROSLAG's activities focus on research and technology, European standardization, and internal and external communication. Every two years EUROSLAG organizes the Slag Conference together with national partners. About the FEhS Institute For more than seven decades, the FEhS Building Materials Institute has been Europe's leading address for research, testing and consulting on building materials and fertilizers made from ferrous and steel slags. As a modern service provider, the experts are a sought-after partner for member companies and customers from all over the world with seven laboratories, the KompetenzForum Bau and a network of industry associations, authorities, standardization bodies and institutions from science and research. www.euroslag2024.eu www.euroslag.com www.fehs.de www.rohstoff-schlacke.deInternational conference on ferrous slags
Registration for the 12th EUROSLAG in Bilbao open - Abstracts until 30.4.24
Duisburg, 6 March 2024. Decarbonization and transformation, resource conservation and circular economy: The enormous economic and ecological challenges can only be overcome at an international level. This also applies to ferrous slag and the products made from it. Under the title "Slag for the Future, the Future of Slags", the European network EUROSLAG is organizing its 12th conference from 23 to 25 October in Bilbao. Registration is now open at www.euroslag2024.eu or https://lnkd.in/dGZjudzA. Participants and speakers from all over the world are expected to attend. Interested parties can also submit their abstracts for papers and posters via the website until April 30, 2024. SIDEREX, the Basque Steel Cluster Association, and UNESID, the Spanish Steel Industry Business Association, are organizing the event with the support of PLATEA, the Spanish Steel Technology Platform, and EUROSLAG.
Central topics of the event are the influence of the decarbonization process on the properties and availability of slags, the impact of legislation and standardization including technical and ecological issues, innovative production and processing, characterization and use of slags, new areas of application and the recovery of metallic raw materials from ferrous slags.
Thomas Reiche, Managing Director of FEhS – Institute for Building Materials Research and Chairman of EUROSLAG: "Science and industry, research and companies are working hand in hand worldwide to make enormous efforts to be able to use ferrous slag in cement and concrete, as a transport construction material, in fertilizers or new fields of application in the future. This not only benefits numerous industries. It also benefits the earth's increasingly scarce natural resources and the climate. We want to set an example in Bilbao that a lot can be achieved together and look forward to groundbreaking presentations and an interesting exchange."
About EUROSLAG
EUROSLAG brings together 26 organizations and companies from 17 countries, including the FEhS Institute. As a European network for the production, use and development of ferrous slags and slag-based products, EUROSLAG's activities focus on research and technology, European standardization, and internal and external communication. Every two years EUROSLAG organizes the Slag Conference together with national partners.
www.euroslag2024.eu
www.euroslag.com
www.fehs.de
www.rohstoff-schlacke.de
All about ferrous slag
Updated brochure with new chapter on transformation
Duisburg, September 13th, 2023. The FEhS Building Materials Institute has updated its brochure "Ferrous slag. Valuable raw material for resource-saving management". With latest figures of 2022, it provides information on the production and use of the by-product of steel production, as well as on CO2 emissions saved and quantities of natural rock substituted. New is the chapter "Transformation of the steel industry and new slags", which is dedicated to the decarbonization of steel production. The 20-page compact publication with numerous graphics is available in print and as a pdf at www.fehs.de in the download area.
In eight chapters, the brochure "Ferrous Slag" provides a comprehensive overview of the secondary raw material: from its production and technological and ecological properties to its various applications as a building material, in traffic route construction and as a fertilizer, to an outlook on the future by-products of hydrogen-based steel production. Extensive, graphically prepared figures, for example on resource and climate protection using ferrous slag, make the publication a useful information tool for architects, engineers, building contractors, representatives of public authorities and politicians.
Thomas Reiche, Managing Director of the FEhS Institute: "With the Compact Brochure 2023, we want to show the contribution of the steel industries’ by-products to a sustainable circular economy. Because only those who are comprehensively informed can act in an economically and ecologically sensible way. This applies above all to the future use of secondary raw materials, which conserve natural resources and the climate even in First Life.“
About the FEhS Institute:
For seven decades, the FEhS Building Materials Institute has been one of Europe’s leading addresses for research, testing and consulting on iron and steel slag, building materials and fertilisers. As a modern service provider, the experts with seven laboratories, the Construction Competence Forum and a network of industrial associations, public authorities, standardisation committees, as well as institutions from science and research, are a sought-after partner for members and customers from all over the world.
www.fehs.de
www.rohstoff-schlacke.de
Public Sector to make greater use of secondary raw materials
EUROSLAG and FEhS Institute in favour of EU Parliament plans for the Circular Economy
Duisburg, 25 February 2021. The EU Parliament’s own-initiative report adopted this month calls for an upgrading of secondary raw materials. Among other things, it provides for stronger ecologically oriented public procurement with mandatory minimum criteria, for example in the construction industry. For the European network EUROSLAG and the FEhS Building Materials Institute, this is an important step towards a comprehensive approval of secondary building materials and their conditional prioritisation in public procurement tenders. For this to happen, however, European public procurement law must be amended, as a legal opinion by the law firm Kopp-Assenmacher & Nusser, commissioned by the two Duisburg institutions in 2020, found.
Thomas Reiche, Chairman at EUROSLAG and Managing Director of the FEhS Institute, now sees the ball in the European Commission’s court: "The own-initiative report provides the best foundation for binding, forward-looking legislation to consistently promote the circular economy. This also includes fair competition and the conditional prioritisation of secondary raw materials, as also demanded by the rapporteur of the European Parliament Jan Huitema. Only concrete procurement directives with third-party protection character ensure the Europe-wide use of all high-quality secondary building materials, which have been making an important contribution to ecologically and economically sound economic activity for decades!"
The European Parliament’s own-initiative report, under the lead of the Environment Committee, has adopted numerous demands based on the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan of March 2020. These include the promotion of resource efficiency, the Ecodesign Directive for products and green public procurement. Plans for the construction industry include specifications for the use of secondary raw materials and recycling. The Parliament’s proposals serve as a template for legislation by the European Commission.
About EURSOSLAG:
EUROSLAG brings together 26 organisations and companies from 17 countries. As the European network for the production, use and development of iron and steel slag and slag-based products, EUROSLAG focuses on research and technology, standardisation at European level and internal and external communication.
About the FEhS Institute:
For seven decades, the FEhS Building Materials Institute has been one of Europe’s leading addresses for research, testing and consulting on iron and steel slag, building materials and fertilisers. As a modern service provider, the experts with seven laboratories, the Construction Competence Forum and a network of industrial associations, public authorities, standardisation committees, as well as institutions from science and research, are a sought-after partner for members and customers from all over the world.
www.euroslag.com
www.fehs.de
www.rohstoff-schlacke.de