India is Ready for a Green Steel Bonanza

A brand new trade readiness evaluation developed by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – Inexperienced Enterprise Centre and supported by Climate Catalyst, finds that India is effectively ready to undertake Inexperienced Public Procurement (GPP) for metal if it have been to be mandated. This might assist create the nation’s first large-scale, assured marketplace for licensed low-carbon metal beginning in FY2028. 

Public procurement accounts for INR 45-50 lakh crore yearly and authorities‑linked initiatives devour ~31.6 million tonnes of metal, producing ~70 million tonnes of CO₂ in FY2024. The examine finds that even a modest mandate of 26% can unlock as much as 16 million tonnes of licensed inexperienced metal from main and secondary metal producers by FY2030, whereas accelerating India’s industrial decarbonisation and reinforcing its international competitiveness. 

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• A bigger 37% mandate may unlock as much as 24 MT and assist keep away from as much as 29.7 MtCO₂ by 2030, equal to taking as much as 9 million automobiles off the street every year.
• 93% of metal producers (26 out of 28 interviewed) are prepared to produce licensed inexperienced metal as soon as a mandate is issued

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The report attracts on inputs from a few of India’s largest producers and consumers/procurers of metal together with 28 metal producers masking 88 million tonnes every year (MTPA) of crude metal capability and 12 main public procurers. It finds that 93% of producers (26 out of 28 surveyed) are prepared to produce licensed inexperienced metal at scale, contingent on a notified mandate and clear value restoration by a premium, GST concession or carbon credit score offset. 

Procuring companies (12 surveyed) additionally expressed readiness to implement such a coverage, on the situation that the 4 enablers are established: 

• A notified nationwide mandate with clear share thresholds; 
• Prepared-to-use tender clauses and Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) templates; 
• Transient coaching for his or her procurement groups; 
  – Modest, time-bound fiscal help for the primary three years, comparable to a predetermined inexperienced margin within the Schedule of Charges, GST aid or a carbon-credit offset.

Introducing a inexperienced metal mandate additionally presents a transparent fiscal alternative at a time when the Union Funds has additional strengthened India’s infrastructure push, elevating public capital expenditure to INR12.2 trillion for FY2026-27. 

With such unprecedented public spending, the examine exhibits that shifting even a portion of metal demand to licensed inexperienced metal would ship sizable long-term emissions financial savings and enhance India’s manufacturing competitiveness, whereas solely marginally rising complete challenge prices. 

The report argues, the mandate isn’t an added burden however a approach to future-proof public infrastructure, maximise the worth of capital funding, and keep away from expensive retrofits later. Redirecting a small share of procurement towards low-carbon metal would assist construct sturdy, climate-aligned property, speed up the home inexperienced metal market by FY2030.

Ok S Venkatagiri, Government Director, Confederation of Indian Business and Chairman, World Ecolabelling Community Board famous, “Inexperienced Public Procurement can play an necessary function in serving to India’s metal sector transfer towards lower-carbon manufacturing. By encouraging the usage of licensed low-emission metal in public infrastructure, housing, and transport initiatives, authorities demand can help market improvement for cleaner metal and assist cut back the price hole between inexperienced and standard merchandise. 

This will additionally present clearer alerts for innovation and funding in cleaner applied sciences, and contribute to decrease embodied carbon within the constructed surroundings. Such measures may enhance the competitiveness of the metal trade whereas aligning with India’s local weather objectives..”

To Sakshi Balani, Director, India & Director, Coverage, Local weather Catalyst, “This examine makes one factor very evident, {that a} clear inexperienced metal mandate can shift India’s metal sector quicker than any subsidy or expertise push. We don’t want to attend, GPP is the lacking demand sign that may instantly reduce emissions, unlock massive‑scale funding and transfer the trade right into a 16-24 MTPA inexperienced‑metal market by FY2030. With minimal value influence and big local weather returns, it’s the most sensible software India has, to drive actual transition this decade.”

The examine evaluates areas for strategic alignment between provide and demand for the 26% mandate as an activation ground for public initiatives valued above INR 1 crore from FY2028 together with an emphasis on signalling a pathway towards 37% publish FY2030. The evaluation signifies that demand for inexperienced metal rises steadily beneath each mandate eventualities, rising consistent with increasing public infrastructure pipelines and demonstrating how even modest procurement mandates can generate sturdy demand alerts over time. This might assist shift investments towards accelerated decarbonisation, together with 4 and 5 Star metal aligned with the Inexperienced Metal Taxonomy. 

Primarily based on draft CCTS emission-intensity trajectories and Inexperienced Metal Taxonomy thresholds, 

Inexperienced Metal Stars

ArcelorMittal Nippon Metal India (Hazira) is prone to be the primary built-in producer to enter the 3-Star class by FY2027. 

Tata Metal’s Jamshedpur and Kalinganagar crops are projected to observe by FY2028, 

JSW’s Bellary, Dolvi and Salem services reaching 3-Star by FY2030, 

One other key discovering highlights a significant alternative: with focused updates to India’s Schedule of Charges (SoR), public procurement frameworks can develop into highly effective enablers of low-carbon metal adoption. Since SoRs information pricing and technical specs in most public tenders, formally recognising licensed low-carbon metal would give procuring companies a transparent and streamlined pathway to undertake greener supplies at scale.

To strengthen governance, transparency, and upstream readiness as this transition scales, the examine recommends establishing a devoted inter-ministerial GPP Metal Job Drive beneath the Ministry of Metal’s management to supervise rollout, resolve bottlenecks, and coordinate throughout procurement, finance, and industrial coverage. It additionally requires necessary upstream emissions disclosure throughout iron ore, pellets, scrap, and vitality inputs to help credible product-level accounting beneath the Inexperienced Metal Taxonomy.

The report additionally highlights systemic constraints that want well timed coverage motion. India’s continual scrap scarcity (a projected 20-30 MTPA hole by 2030), inadequate upstream emissions disclosure by iron ore and coke suppliers, fragmented procurement programs throughout states and PSUs and lack of harmonised MRV (monitoring, reporting and verification) codecs. Addressing these gaps is crucial to completely operationalise GPP at scale. 

The examine concludes {that a} clearly sequenced GPP rollout starting with announcement of a mandate in 2026-27, SoR integration, tender template standardisation, 3-5 excessive visibility pilots and transitional fiscal help would allow public procurement to soak up as much as 24 MTPA of licensed inexperienced metal by FY2030. 

With most institutional mechanisms already in place by GFR (Common Monetary Guidelines) 2017, the CCTS (Carbon Credit score Buying and selling Scheme) and NISST (Nationwide Institute of Secondary Metal Know-how) certification, the examine argues that GPP stands out as the only most impactful software to translate India’s metal sector local weather ambition into measurable motion this decade. 

Local weather Catalyst

Local weather Catalyst strengthens collaboration and mobilises new actors on pivotal local weather challenges. They work behind the scenes with numerous stakeholders in Europe and Asia to establish alternatives the place motion so far has been restricted, the potential for collaboration is excessive and there’s important potential to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions. 

Local weather Catalyst brings collectively famend consultants and new entrants to ship inventive programmes that construct energy and safe decisive motion by governments to make sure they attain their imaginative and prescient of a simply, affluent world by which international temperature rise is proscribed to 1.5°C. Thus far, Local weather Catalyst has sparked collective motion in help of peatlands safety in Europe and to safe constructive shifts in direction of metal decarbonisation in India.

climatecatalyst.org