EUROSLAG says that the use of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) in cement production in the EU and UK between 2000 and 2022 has generated a cumulative reduction in CO2 emissions of 408Mt.

The European Union and the UK produced around 38.5 million metric tonnes of ferrous slag in 2022, 99% of which could be used primarily as a building material and in fertilizers, claims Euroslag, the Duisburg-based European Association of ferrous slag producers and processors.

This means that the by-products of the steel industry have substituted more than 1.1 billion tons of natural rock over the period 2000 to 2022.

In 2022, blast furnace slag accounted for 21.3Mt of the 38.5Mt of ferrous slag.

Of this, 17.57Mt – or 82.5% – was used in cement and concrete, 3.07Mt in traffic route construction and 0.66Mt for other uses.

Of the total 17.0Mt of steelmaking slag, 12.07Mt – or 70.2% – went to traffic route construction, 2.20Mt to metallurgical work, 1.57Mt to fertilizer, 0.67Mt to cement and concrete, and 0.69Mt to other applications.

According to Thomas Reiche, chairman of EUROSLAG and managing director of the FEhS Building Materials Institute, "Resource conservation through secondary raw materials, especially in the construction sector, and lower emissions of climate-damaging CO2 are of outstanding ecological and economic importance."