German steelmakers and their medium-sized processor customers are suffering from the obligation placed on them to document their efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from production, representatives said at Wednesday’s Zukunft Stahl conference organised by Handelsblatt.
A session dedicated to this issue was titled “What is the impact of ESG criteria on financing and investment decisions in the steel industry?” Moderator Kevin Knitterscheid’s opening question was: “Do companies actually have the capacity and time to fulfil the reporting duties?”
Uwe Reinecke, general manager of Feralpi Stahl, replied that the requirements “are not really friendly for medium-sized companies”. He noted he was in charge of such reporting himself and it involved other staff, besides the other actual work they have to do.
Alexander Becker of GMH (Georgsmarienhütte) Gruppe was even more outspoken, and fiercely attacked the reporting duties that he finds create complication. “It would make sense to suspend the obligation for reporting for five years,” he suggested at the event in Essen attended by Kallanish.
Such obligation may have been okay when it was defined several years ago, but not currently, in the thick of a crisis. “It is okay to do it on a voluntary basis, if, for example, your customers ask for it. But let’s face it, we are up to our ears in the waves, and hardly have the personnel to meet such extra duties. We cannot afford such bureaucracy in this period,” Becker said.
Earlier in the day, the managing director of steel association WV Stahl, Kerstin Maria Rippel, did not address the issue directly. However, she expressed an understanding for the overload borne by the companies and said that “we need pragmatism and flexibility on the way”.
The North Rhine Westphalia state economy minister, Mona Neubauer, also indirectly addressed the issue of bureaucracy reaching the degree that it has become a hurdle to daily business. Even if acting pragmatically, there will be a lot of work to do in the process of transition, she said. She also conceded that politics needs to rethink. “Politics must adopt a do-it attitude, and not lag behind in a subjunctive mode. And this applies to the larger society,” she noted.
Christian Koehl Germany
