Outokumpu & Alfa Laval join forces to cut carbon emissions

Sustainable stainless steel producer Outokumpu and Alfa Laval, global provider of products in the areas of heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling, have signed a contract on the deliveries of the world’s first towards-zero stainless steel, Outokumpu Circle Green®. Alfa Laval will move to Circle Green stainless steel for its purchases from Outokumpu for its main production units in Europe. This shift is significant, as Alfa Laval’s heat exchangers can contain up to 80 percent stainless steel.
Outokumpu now supplies Circle Green in Supra® and Core® stainless steel grades for Alfa Laval to produce heat exchangers. Alfa Laval’s heat exchangers are used in the energy transition towards a more sustainable energy supply, including energy efficiency, waste heat recovery, and heat pumps. The company produces these heat exchangers in large quantities, with the potential for future growth. With Outokumpu Circle Green, these enablers of the green transition can be manufactured with an even lower carbon footprint.

Accelerating green transition

The Circle Green product line with up to 93% lower carbon footprint than the industry average¹ is the first commercial towards-zero stainless steel in the market. It was created to accelerate the green transition and extremely advanced circular economy. To achieve such
a low level of emissions, Outokumpu uses 100 percent low-carbon electricity, low-carbon raw materials, such as recycled steel, and reinvented production processes.
“Circle Green is our spearhead climate solution, and we are extremely pleased that our long-time customer Alfa Laval is now switching its Outokumpu stainless steel orders in the main classic grades to Circle Green. Alfa Laval and Outokumpu share the same ambition to drive green transition by helping our customers to lower their carbon footprint through reducing the emissions in the entire supply chain. This cooperation is great example of how the green solutions like renewable energy call for low-carbon stainless steel,” says Thomas Anstots, President, business line Advanced Materials at Outokumpu.
“If all the stainless steel in the world was produced with the same methods used for our Circle Green production, it would reduce global carbon emissions from the entire stainless steel value chain by 364 million tons per year.”

Various grades

The Circle Green grades delivered to Alfa Laval include Circle Green Supra 316/4401, Circle Green Core 304/4301 and Circle Green Supra 316L/4404. The material will be delivered from mills in Dillenburg, Germany, and Tornio, Finland.

¹ For the Circle Green classic grades: global average CO2 emissions (2023) are 7 kilos of CO2e per kg of stainless steel (Outokumpu’s calculation based on data provided by CRU and worldstainless), and Outokumpu Circle Green CO2 emissions are down to 0.5 kilos of CO2e per kg of stainless steel.