Decarbonizing Heavy Industry

Challenge & Opportunity

Heavy industry, including steel, cement, chemicals, and refining, produces the materials that underpin modern civilization. It is also responsible for a large share of global carbon emissions. These industries rely on high-temperature heat and chemical processes that are difficult to decarbonize using conventional approaches.

The opportunity is to reinvent industrial production using clean energy, new materials, and innovative processes. While challenging, industrial decarbonization offers some of the largest single reductions in global emissions and is essential for achieving net-zero goals.

This is one of the hardest climate problems, and one of the most important to solve.

Green Steel
Hydrogen-based ironmaking replaces coal with green hydrogen, eliminating most emissions from steel production. This approach has the potential to transform one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industries.

Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete
New cement formulations, carbon-cured concrete, and alternative binders reduce emissions from a material responsible for roughly 8% of global CO₂ output.

Electrified Industrial Heat
Technologies such as electric furnaces, plasma heating, and high-temperature heat pumps replace fossil-fuel burners in industrial processes.

Carbon Capture for Industry
For processes where emissions are unavoidable, carbon capture can prevent CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, especially in the production of cement and chemicals.

Together, these solutions target emissions at their source, where climate impact is greatest.

Cleaning Up the Foundations of the Modern World

Examples

Herta Metals
Developing advanced, low-carbon metals production using innovative processes and clean energy to dramatically reduce emissions from steel and industrial materials at scale.
www.hertametals.com

CarbonCure
Injects captured CO₂ into concrete, reducing emissions while strengthening the final product.
www.carboncure.com

Boston Metal
Using molten oxide electrolysis process to produce steel and other metals, using clean electricity instead of coal, enabling near-zero-emissions metal production at industrial scale.
www.bostonmetal.com

Companies Making an Impact

Category

Climate Impact

Innovation Momentum

Scalability

Real-World Adoption

Decarbonization of Heavy Industry
Climate Impact And Readiness Assessment (CIARA)

Score

9/10

7/10

6/10

6/10

Overall CIARA Score: 7.0 / 10

Decarbonizing heavy industry is difficult, expensive, and essential, one of the defining climate challenges of this century.

Why it Matters

Heavy industry accounts for a massive share of global emissions with few alternatives.

Breakthroughs in hydrogen, materials science, and electrification are advancing quickly.

Solutions are capital-intensive and typically require major infrastructure changes.

Early projects are underway, but full deployment will take time.