Guidelines. Sustainability of steel sheet piles

Environmental Product Declarations and Life Cycle Assessments

What is a Life Cycle Assessment? 

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic analysis and evaluation of the environmental impacts of a product (or service) for its entire life cycle. The life cycle of a product in the construction industry includes the extraction of raw materials and their further processing, transport, manufacture, all further processing steps before installation at the construction site, the use phase, disassembly and finally the reuse or recycling of the product.

 

What is an Environmental Product Declaration? 

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a document that describes the environmental impacts of a product based on a life cycle assessment with quantitative data. An EPD enables manufacturers to transparently communicate the environmental impacts of products. EPDs in turn form the basis for the ecological assessment of buildings and other construction projects. 

ArcelorMittal’s EPDs are verified by independent experts and published at EPD International.

Global Warming Potential [kg CO2e t sheet pile]

Download

en English AMCRPS_Sustainability_guidelines_EN-2024_web.pdf us English (USA) AMCRPS_Sustainability-guidelines_USA_2024_web.pdf de German AMCRPS_Nachhaltigkeit-Leifaden_DE-2024-web.pdf fr French AMCRPS_Guide-Info-Dev-durable_FR-2024-web.pdf
Pause Play

Which EPDs does ArcelorMittal Sheet Piling have? 

  • EcoSheetPileTM Plus: secondary route, 100 % steel scrap, 100 % renewable electricity;
  • EcoSheetPileTM: secondary route, 100 % steel scrap;
  • Cold-formed sheet piles: primary route, 11 % steel scrap;
  • Hot-rolled sheet piles (GU®): primary route, 17 % steel scrap.

Steel can be produced via the primary route (blast furnace and converter) or via the secondary route (electric arc furnace). Scrap-based production via the secondary route is far more environmentally friendly than conventional production with a blast furnace and converter, as no iron ore or coal is used. 

For EcoSheetPile™ and EcoSheetPile™ Plus, steel scrap sourced from Europe is melted down and reprocessed in the electric arc furnace. This is closed-loop recycling. Scrap-based steel production thus conserves natural resources while emitting significantly less greenhouse gases. 

When 100% electricity from renewable energy sources is used during production, the carbon footprint of a tonne of sheet piles is reduced further. The chart below compares the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of sheet pile production for different production routes based on EPDs.