NEW DELHI, October 2 — The Union Ministry of Steel on Friday officially notified the finalized national taxonomy and standardized certification thresholds for 'Green Steel', establishing regulatory frameworks to decarbonize the domestic metals sector and insulate exports against cross-border carbon border tariffs.
According to the official gazette parameters, manufactured crude steel qualifies for the sovereign 'Green Steel' certification only if cumulative lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions remain below 1.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) per tonne of crude steel produced. The taxonomy establishes a three-tier performance matrix: Platinum Green Steel (emissions below 0.8 tCO2e/tonne), Gold Green Steel (0.8 to 1.2 tCO2e/tonne), and Silver Green Steel (1.2 to 1.6 tCO2e/tonne), contrasting against the domestic legacy Blast Furnace-Basic Oxygen Furnace (BF-BOF) average of 2.5 tCO2e/tonne.
Steel Ministry officials affirmed that secondary steelmakers adopting green hydrogen-fueled Direct Reduced Iron (DRI), scrap-fed Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF), biochar injection, and Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) will receive 20 percent sovereign procurement preference in central infrastructure tenders.
The industrial economics of India's steel sector (second-largest crude steel producer globally after China), the National Steel Policy 2017 (targeting 300 MTPA capacity by 2030), the geopolitical trade implications of the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and industrial hydrogen deployment under the National Green Hydrogen Mission are core topics across UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Industrial Policy, Environment & Trade) and Engineering recruitment examinations.