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BUSINESS

Danish business can reduce emissions and create 120,000 jobs, confederation says

The Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI) says that it is possible to reduce the country’s climate impact while creating thousands of jobs and increasing prosperity.

Danish business can reduce emissions and create 120,000 jobs, confederation says
File photo: Bax Lindhardt/SP/Ritzau Scanpix

The organization, a private interest group made up of approximately 10,000 Danish companies, has released a new climate plan which targets a 65-70 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

That puts DI in tandem with the government’s stated goals on emissions reductions. The Social Democrat government wants a 70 percent reduction on 1990 emissions levels by 2030.

READ ALSO: Environmental organizations cheer 'historic' Danish climate goal

DI estimates that the plan could create as many as 120,000 jobs in the private sector, boosting Denmark’s economy by 110 billion kroner.

“Companies must, to a great degree, be at the forefront of developing the technology which will get us to the high climate targets,” DI CEO Lars Sandahl Sørensen said.

“Denmark has a tradition for creating energy efficiency and sustainable energy. We in Denmark can be a laboratory for the rest of the world in developing the technologies needed for a worldwide green conversion,” Sørensen continued.

The DI plan includes climate initiatives costing up to 16 billion kroner and 150 different political proposals.

That includes more consistent taxation of CO2 emissions and investment in efficient energy use in industry and in buildings.

DI also believes fossil fuel use in the transport sector can be phased out and that electric cars should be exempted from registration fees.

READ ALSO: Explained: Why is it so expensive to buy a car in Denmark?

Construction of two new offshore wind farms as well as new on-land solar and wind power facilities is also outlined.

The plan also includes a number of measures intended to help finance the climate-related projects.

Those include reforms to boost employment of those currently out of work, new graduates and skilled foreign labour.

Tax and finance measures would reward companies which invest in research and development, under DI’s climate plan.

The organization also states that some of what is referred to as a ‘buffer’ (‘råderum’) in state coffers could be spent to make the plan reality.

READ ALSO: 12 percent of Danish wind energy to be produced by giant new offshore farm

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: 

The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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