Toward a Net-Zero Car: Gestamp Partners with Steel Producers to Further its ESG Strategy

Late in 2023, Gestamp, the Spanish multinational manufacturer specializing in the design, development, and manufacture of metal components for the automotive industry, signed agreements with steelmakers SSAB and Tata Steel UK to increase the amount of fossil-free steel used in body-in-white and chassis-system products. Circularity is a key pillar for the decarbonization of the industry across the entire supply chain, company officials say, towards the goal of contributing, in the long term, to the development of the net-zero car.

SSAB plans to deliver fossil-free steel to the market at a commercial scale in 2026, and to largely eliminate carbon-dioxide emissions from its own operations sometime near 2030. The byproduct from steelmaking would then be water. During the process, coking coal, traditionally used for iron ore-based steelmaking, will be replaced by fossil-free electricity and hydrogen.

Gestamp’s agreement with Tata Steel UK aims to nearly double recycled-steel content supplied to the automotive sector. The initiative will enable Gestamp to pass on to vehicle manufacturers the benefits of increasing their recycled content, including a reduced carbon footprint. Tata’s automotive grades already include 17% recycled content, comprised of scrap steel that re-enters the steel-production process. This new partnership sees the percentage of recycled content associated with the steel provided to Gestamp jump to 30%, with no impact on quality, strength or formability. In this new partnership, Gestamp will channel its high-quality scrap to Tata Steel’s steelworks in Port Talbot, Wales. To ensure accountability, Tata Steel will establish an independently audited Gestamp Recycled Content Bank, to provide evidence demonstrating the volume of high-quality scrap supplied, and the associated CO2 savings.

These new agreements with Tata and SSAB come on the heels of Gestamp’s “circularity” agreement signed with ArcelorMittal in June 2023. 

See also: Ssab Hardox Corp., Tata Steel International

Technologies: Materials

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