Strengthening climate transition planning: Revising the ResponsibleSteel Production Standard

Last year marked a decade since the signing of the Paris Agreement and six years since the launch of the ResponsibleSteel Production Standard. In that time, expectations on climate action have shifted dramatically. Global emissions continue to rise, and the 1.5°C warming threshold is now projected to be breached by 2034. To remain on a 1.5°C pathway, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that global CO₂ emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Yet progress in the steel sector is lagging. According to the Mission Possible Partnership’s Global Project Tracker, only 9% of the required operational or committed near-zero steelmaking capacity was in place by the end of 2024.

Against a backdrop of rising global emissions and growing awareness of the consequences of inaction, ResponsibleSteel is undertaking a timely and necessary revision of its climate-related requirements, specifically criteria 10.1 (corporate commitment to the Paris Agreement), 10.2 (corporate climate-related financial disclosure), 10.5 (site-level emissions targets and planning), and 10.7.1 (GHG disclosure and reporting).

A collaborative revision process

From October to January, ResponsibleSteel convened five Working Group (WG) and Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meetings, bringing together 23 representatives from 15 member organisations across certification bodies, civil society, steelmakers, and the wider steel value chain.

As a participant from SteelWatch noted during the process, “Having a diverse group of members involved in the revision process of the standard helps to achieve a balance between what steelmakers deem feasible and where the standard needs to set the bar to trigger ambitious action. ResponsibleSteel has done well navigating and drawing on different perspectives, turning them into concrete proposals that can be submitted for the next steps of the revision process.”

Three guiding principles framed these discussions:

• Ambition: ensuring alignment with global climate goals and science-based pathways
• Feasibility: recognising real-world constraints, particularly in the near term
• Simplicity: avoiding unnecessary complexity while improving clarity and accountability

A key theme that emerged was the foundational importance of credible transition plans that move beyond aspiration and, at the same time, are grounded in realistic assumptions about technology readiness, capital investment cycles, and enabling conditions. As noted by SteelWatch, “Aligning corporate- and site-level requirements is essential in ensuring that top-level corporate ambition and targets translate into actual investment decisions today, and subsequent material transformation and emissions reductions on the ground.”

Moving beyond outdated decarbonisation roadmaps

Under the current Production Standard, certified sites must demonstrate that they have a decarbonisation roadmap aligned with an existing model. However, the WG and TAG agreed that many of these models have not been updated in recent years and no longer reflect technological, economic, or policy realities. As a result, they risk undermining rather than strengthening transition planning. The revised approach moves away from a prescriptive reliance on external models and instead proposes to introduce an explicit requirement for a climate transition plan at the corporate and site level.

A participant from EMSTEEL, a ResponsibleSteel member and certified site, commented, “Revising the ResponsibleSteel Standard is an important step in strengthening the steel sector’s collective transition journey. The process provides members with a valuable opportunity to contribute practical insights, share operational experience, and help shape a standard that is both ambitious and implementable. ResponsibleSteel has done an excellent job in creating an inclusive and transparent revision process, encouraging constructive dialogue among members and ensuring diverse industry perspectives are reflected in the development of a stronger and more credible framework.”

What’s proposed to change in the Production Standard?

The proposed revisions strengthen and connect key elements of Principle 10, with a clearer and more coherent architecture across corporate and site levels.

Key improvements include:

• Quantitative, time-bound emissions reduction targets, covering Scope 1 and 2 emissions and material Scope 3 emissions
• Stronger links between corporate- and site-level planning, ensuring that corporate ambition translates into real investment decisions and on-the-ground transformation
• Improved intensity-based disclosures to support comparability, directly aligned with ResponsibleSteel’s broader harmonisation work
• Alignment with leading frameworks, such as IFRS S2 (International Financial Reporting Standards), while retaining flexibility for different regional and operating contexts
• Clearer guardrails for credibility, moving beyond temperature labels alone

There was strong agreement across the WG that clearer wording and guidance are essential to support consistent interpretation and implementation by sites and auditors alike.

Connecting the dots between the Production Standard’s criteria

One of the most important outcomes of the revision process so far has been a clearer set of connections between criteria that, while related, have not previously been well integrated.

In the current Production Standard:

• Corporate transition planning (10.1) is weakly connected to climate-related financial disclosures (10.2)
• Site-level transition planning (10.5) is not sufficiently aligned with corporate-level strategies
• Public GHG emissions disclosure requirements (10.7.1) are limited, focusing mainly on a site’s medium-term reduction target

The proposed changes aim to address these gaps by:

• Requiring climate transition plans to include climate-related financial risks and opportunities, including dependencies that may impose structural barriers, planned changes to business models and strategy;
• Aligning corporate- and site-level planning approaches to reduce carbon leakage risks and ensure consistency across operating boundaries; and
• Strengthening public disclosure requirements to better support accountability, comparability, and progress tracking over time.

Flexibility, credibility, and the reality of steelmaking

The WG and TAG discussions also surfaced a shared understanding of the structural barriers currently slowing decarbonisation in the steel industry. These include:

• Limited technology maturity at scale
• Supply chain and infrastructure constraints
• Energy availability and cost
• Inconsistent or insufficient policy support
• Weak demand signals for low-emission steel
• Trade and competitiveness pressures

Given the long investment timelines and asset lifetimes involved, feasibility in the near term is particularly critical. As such, there was strong support for a flexible, disclosure-driven approach that pairs quantitative targets with qualitative indicators of progress, allowing ResponsibleSteel to uphold high ambition and transparency while recognising that steelmakers cannot address systemic barriers alone.

As ResponsibleSteel’s Decarbonisation Analyst, Melav Salih observed, “A robust climate transition plan must embed decarbonisation within broader strategic and financial planning. It needs to recognise that steelmakers’ transition pathways are shaped by long-lived assets, billion-dollar investment decisions, and dependencies on an ecosystem of change that includes energy systems, infrastructure, policy, and markets.”

Looking ahead

As the Paris Agreement enters its second decade, and as legal, financial, and societal expectations on climate accountability intensify, ResponsibleSteel’s role as a credible, independent standard for the steel industry has never been more important.

By strengthening climate transition planning across corporate strategy, site-level action, financial disclosure, and public reporting, revisions to the Production Standard aim to support steelmakers in navigating this transition transparently and at pace.

Together with parallel work on harmonisation and disclosure alignment, the revisions to climate transition planning requirements represent a critical step toward turning climate commitments into credible, comparable, and feasible transition pathways for the global steel industry.

Learn more about the revision of ResponsibleSteel’s International Production Standard here.