Swedish low-carbon steel developer Stegra has signed a multiyear agreement to supply Meta, part of the RMI sustainable steel buyers platform, with environmental attribute certificates linked to its under construction Boden plant in northern Sweden, the companies said in a joint statement Nov. 12.
The accredited third-party-verified certificates will allow Meta to claim the emissions benefits associated with lower-carbon steel without directly receiving the underlying material. Meta said the purchase would address supply-chain emissions, stimulate demand for lower-carbon construction materials and help finance early-stage manufacturing capacity.
RMI’s Sustainable Steel Buyers Platform is a group of companies active in sectors with high steel usage and helps facilitate low-emission steel procurement. EACs allow companies to address their steel-related emissions where direct procurement of the physical product is challenging.
Steel represents one of the largest sources of embodied carbon in data center construction, with the agreement that comes as data center developers increasingly seek lower-carbon materials to cut emissions.
Stegra did not detail certificate volumes as well as financial terms.
“The market for green steel is still in its early stages, and physical supply has not caught up with demand,” Devon Lake, head of Net Zero Strategy, Meta, said.
“Environmental attribute certificates let us act on those emissions now, with third-party verification, and direct demand toward production that is still coming online. That is how the market for green steel gets built.”
Stegra’s planned production route will use renewable power and green hydrogen, which the company said could reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 95% compared with conventional blast furnace-based steelmaking.
Stegra’s steel EACs
Stegra’s environmental attribute certificates (EACs) use a “book-and-claim” system. This means the environmental benefits are separated from the physical steel. The steel linked to the certificates is produced using green hydrogen and renewable electricity, resulting in close to zero emissions compared with conventional steelmaking.
The physical steel is sold without the environmental attributes, so its buyer cannot claim the emissions reductions. Those benefits belong to the EAC holder. Stegra applies this system to nonprime steel, which is steel that does not meet all the required specifications for prime products. New steel mills typically produce more nonprime steel during their early operating years, but it is made using the same low-emission process as Stegra’s other steel.
Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, launched Northwest Europe hot-rolled coil carbon-accounted prices in May 2023, with the assessment calculated in line with the sum of Platts daily carbon-accounted steel premium assessment and Platts daily HRC ex-works Ruhr price assessment.
Since its monitoring, prices moved from €920/metric ton base EXW to €820/mt base EXW Nov. 11, reaching their bottom in November 2024 and July 2025 at about €595/mt base EXW.
Author: Annalisa Villa
