SSAB and EMW start partnership in fossil-free steel for automotive components

Neunkirchen, 16 July 2025. SSAB and EMW Steel Service Centre have entered into a long-term partnership for future deliveries of fossil-free steel. The partnership will help EMW to further reduce the carbon footprint of its products as CO2-reduced steel already plays a central role in EMW's business strategy.

As one of the largest independent Steel Service Centres in Europe, the EMW Steel Service Centre supplies coils, slit-strips, cut-to-size formats and circular blanks to the steel processing and automotive industry. Among the company’s specialities are a wide range of high-quality automobile grades, high-tensile steels, grades for enamelling and the highly efficient organisation of transport logistics. EMW is part of the family-led SCHÄFER WERKE Group headquartered in the Siegerland town of Neunkirchen in Germany.

"The collaboration with SSAB marks a milestone on our path toward climate-friendly steel processing. Fossil-free steel is a material of the future – and together with SSAB, we are laying the foundation for innovative, sustainable solutions in the automotive industry. This partnership highlights our commitment to combining ecological responsibility with technological excellence”, says Holger Latsch, General Manager EMW.

“We are pleased to support EMW´s sustainability goals in the automotive industry in delivering the tough CO2 reductions that both producers and consumers require for more sustainable cars.  The decarbonised steel with virtually zero fossil carbon emission we produce retains its high quality, but its climate impact is significantly lower compared to steel based on traditional blast furnace technology. This helps to reduce our customers' carbon footprint and provides a competitive advantage in the market”, says Claus Doré, Area Sales Manager Automotive, SSAB Europe.

This agreement marks a new step in the long-standing partnership between EMW and SSAB that comprises a variety of actions addressing all aspects of the development chain, from sales to production to testing and customer experience as an example of inter-company cooperation in the world of steel products.

Traditional steel production represents a significant source of global CO2 emissions, By changing the way steel is produced, SSAB wants to cut emissions and create a fossil-free value chain with customers and partners, regardless of whether the raw material is scrap steel or iron ore.

In 2021, SSAB produced the world’s first fossil-free steel as a proof of concept using HYBRIT® technology. The revolutionary steelmaking technology using hydrogen reduced sponge iron, removes the primary source of CO2 emissions with water as by-product, instead of CO2. Since then, a number of pilot deliveries have been made to customers in different industries. When available in commercial volumes, the fossil carbon emissions in SSAB’s production of SSAB Fossil-free™ steel are targeted to be less than 0.05 kg CO2e/kg steel in Scope 1, 2 and for iron ore upstream Scope 3, of the GHG Protocol.