Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We are the charity and think tank that is all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Ros Bullied, Deputy Policy Director at Green Alliance, and today we're talking about steel. The steel we're using everything from our bridges to refrigerators.

For many areas of the economy, we've got a pretty clear sense of what we need everything from our bridges to refrigerators. For many areas of the

economy, we've got a pretty clear sense of what we need to do to get to net zero. But big,

NG-intensive industrial processes like steel making are firmly in the tricky box, along with

things like flying and agriculture. If you've ever seen the site of a steel plant, have heard

about their financial troubles on the news, or know that most of the UK steel production still relies on coal and a chemical reaction

in which carbon dioxide is an unavoidable by-product, you'll have a sense of some of the

challenges. But there are reasons to be optimistic, with new technologies beginning to emerge

and buyers starting to demand greener steel. I spoke to Sarah

McNaughton, a consultant working in this area at CIU to find out more. It's not unreasonable to think

about sort of mandatory emission standards at some point in the future, but maybe as an alternative

to carbon pricing, and I think the two have to go hand in hand. I started basing her about herself

on what she works on.

So I work for a company called CRU. We are a metals and mining research business.

I've been in the industry for about 10 years covering steel from all sorts of angles.

Certainly for the past three plus years of my life, I've been focused very much on

sustainability issues within the steel sector. And that's because across all commodities that you can

think of, other than thermal coal, steel is really at the front line of the transition.

So do, do steel companies come to you and seek advice on what they

should be doing? Yeah, not just steel companies. I mean, it's such a large industry. It affects

stakeholders across the economy, governments, steel consumers, those who supply into the steel industry,

...