Contribution to Society by Offering Eco-Products

Our Group’s products have advanced functions and reliability, which are based on our superior technological capabilities, and are used in diverse areas including energy, transportation and construction equipment, and household products. They typically help our customers become more efficient while making their products lighter or lengthening product life. That translates into the saving of resources and energy, and into a reduction in CO2 emissions at the point of use at our customers, thereby contributing to lessening the environmental impact.

NSafe™-AutoConcept

NSafe™-AutoConcept

This is a next-generation steel car concept to realize significant weight reduction and improved safety. We have expanded our technical menu of materials development, structural and functional design, construction method development, and performance evaluation, and have also been proposing technologies to adapt to the next-generation mobility, such as electric-powered vehicles including EVs.

HRX19™ stainless steel for high-pressure hydrogen environments

HRX19™ stainless steel for high-pressure hydrogen environments

HRX19™ has the world’s top-level hydrogen embrittlement properties, and has 60% higher strength than conventional materials. It also can be welded. It is an advanced material that is safe, compact, and has a long product life, besides satisfying requirements for a hydrogen station.

High-efficiency electrical steel sheets

High-efficiency electrical steel sheets

Electrical steel sheets are used as the iron-core of motors for transformers, automobiles, home appliances, industrial machinery, and so on. By maximizing the magnetic properties of electrical steel sheets, the loss of electrical energy (iron loss) is reduced, contributing to energy conservation and CO2 emission reduction.

NSafe™-Hull, highly-ductile steel plates for shipbuilding

NSafe™-Hull, highly-ductile steel plates for shipbuilding

Having 50+% higher ductility than conventional steel, NSafe™-Hull is the world’s first steel that prevents oil leakage at the time of a ship’s collision, thereby contributing to preservation of the marine environment. It has been adopted for large-sized bulk carriers and ULCCs (Ultra Large Crude oil Carriers).

Mega NS Hyper Beam™

Mega NS Hyper Beam™

A new product, Mega NS Hyper Beam™, has about 20% greater web thickness than conventional fixed outside-width H-shaped steel of a large-sized cross section. Together with Nippon Steel’s nine conventional H-shaped steel products, the Mega NS Hyper Beam™ has acquired the EcoLeaf Environmental Label, an international certification program that discloses the quantitative environmental information related to LCA of products.

Wheelsets (wheels and axles) for high-speed railways

Wheelsets (wheels and axles) for high-speed railways

Nippon Steel manufactures almost all wheels and axles used by railways in Japan. We are pursuing weight reduction by reducing the thickness of wheels and developing hollow axles, for example, and contributing to improvement in energy efficiency in railway transport, together with high-strength, highly-durable rails and lightweight driving equipment.

Providing high-performance steel products and solutions that help reduce overall CO2 emissions

In addition to promoting drastic technological innovation in the steelmaking process, we are contributing to the realization of a carbon neutral society by providing high-performance steel products (Eco-Products) that help customers save energy and that reduces CO2 emissions when using final products.

Improvement of the capacity and quality of electrical steel sheets

As the world is rapidly moving toward decarbonization, regulations concerning energy efficiency of transformers have been tightened in a number of countries. With regard to grain-oriented (GO) electrical steel sheets used in the iron core of transformers, the need for higher-grade materials with less energy loss is anticipated to further increase. In the meantime, demand for high-efficiency high-grade non-oriented (NO) electrical steel sheets used in the iron core of electric vehicles (EVs) is also expected to dramatically increase, driven by accelerated growth in demand for EVs, along with the stricter regulations for CO2 emissions and average fuel economy for vehicles.

To rapidly respond to these accelerating needs, We are investing a total of 213 billion yen to improve the capacity and quality of electrical steel sheets at its Kyushu Works Yahata and Setouchi Works Hirohata.

The total accumulated investment amount for these and other measures will be approximately 213 billion yen and they are planned to take full effect in the first half of fiscal 2027.

The manufacturing capacity of non-oriented electrical steel sheets for eco-friendly cars is expected to increase by about five times from the current capacity.

Construction of a next-generation hot strip mill and prod uction of ultra-high-tensile steel sheets

In the automotive industry, where global environmental regulations are showing a trend of tightening and where crashworthiness standards are becoming more stringent, demand for high-performance materials is expected to further grow in response to the need for lighter, stronger vehicle bodies.

For the foreseeable future, demand for electric and hybrid vehicles will have high growth potential, increasing needs for lighter and stronger vehicle bodies that support extended travel distance, heavier battery weight, and higher safety.

In response to these needs, we have started to make strategic investments in a next-generation hot strip rolling mill (production capacity: approximately 6 million tons/year: commissioning in the first quarter of fiscal 2026) as a means of fundamentally strengthening our production system for ultra-high-tensile steel sheets and other high-performance steel sheets at the Nagoya Works — our core base for manufacturing automotive steel sheets.

Nippon steel’s steel products support diffusion of renewable energy

SuperDyma™, suitable for the supporting mount for solar power panels

SuperDyma™ is an eco-friendly building material that is highly corrosionresistant and lasts four times longer than conventional products. In particular it has recently been adopted for the supporting mount of solar power panels in various parts of Japan.

KATAMA™ SP use for solar power generation sites

KATAMA™ SP is a simple pavement material that makes use of steel slag’s characteristics of compacting in reaction to water. Due to its weed control effect, KATAMA™ SP is used for pavement at mega-solar panel power stations, to help maintain power generation efficiency and reduce mowing.

Steel materials (floating platforms, mooring chains) for offshore wind power generation

Unlike onshore wind farms, which cause wind noise and emit low frequency wavelength sound, offshore wind farms are drawing attention as Japan, an island country, has a long coast line and strong offshore wind tends to be steady. The Nipponsteel Group is developing high-strength, corrosion-resistant steel material with good workability, as well as the construction technology, contributing to improvement of offshore wind farms.

Geothermal power stations and seamless pipes for geothermal power generation

Geothermal power generation is promising as renewable energy use of which results in low CO2 emissions. Nippon Steel Engineering in the Nipponsteel Group has been responsible for the construction of production equipment and pipelines on nine of 17 large-scale geothermal power plants in Japan. The company thus has abundant construction achievements and knowhow.
Leveraging the technology accumulated in manufacturing OCTGs for deep-sea underwater oilfields where the steel is exposed to a highly-corrosive environment, Nipponsteel also provides seamless pipes, suitable to be used in geothermal power generation, which also involves a similar high-temperature, high-pressure, highly-corrosive environment.

Steel pipes, contributing to boost efficiency in pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

This is a power generation method to make upper and lower reservoirs and release the pumped-storage water in the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir through turbines to produce electric power. In order to raise generation efficiency, high-strength, high-grade steel pipes were required to withstand increased water pressure due to greater elevation of water. Nipponsteel has successfully developed and commercialized Japan’s first 100kg-class steel used for a pressurized water pipe.

Solar power generation

Solar power generation

Offshore wind power generation

Offshore wind power generation

Geothermal power generation

Geothermal power generation

Pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

Pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

Efforts to disclose environmental data on our products

SuMPO EPD (Environment Product Declaration)’s calculation and disclosure

Since 2019, we have been actively disclosing data such as our products’ LCA-based data on emissions to the environment through SuMPO EPD (formerly known as EcoLeaf).

An EPD is an environmental label that is compliant with the international standard ISO 14025. It calculates the environmental impact (CO2 emissions, and others) of each product in accordance with the ISO 20915 standard, including raw material extraction and transportation, product manufacturing, and recycling effects. The result is issued for each product after verification and certification by a third party (SuMPO).

EPDs disclose information on the global warming potential (GWP) and other various environmental impact values. When calculating CO2 emissions upstream of Scope 3 at customers who purchase our products, more realistic primary data rather than secondary data such as databases can be used.

* SuMPO EPD is managed and operated by the Sustainable Management Promotion Organization (a general incorporated association). The name was changed from “EcoLeaf” to “SuMPO EPD” in April 2024.

「SuMPO EPD」

URL search for Nippon Steel’s EPD certification

Status of EPD certification

To date, we have obtained more than 60 SuMPO EPD certifications covering almost all of our products, which overwhelmingly exceeds the number issued by other companies in the same industry.

EPDs are also used as the basic data for emission reductions required by NSCarbolexTM Neutral. Since we have disclosed EPDs for almost all of our products, NSCarbolex Neutral is applicable to almost all of our products.

[Certified products](as of June 2024)

  • Seamless, high-frequency welded OCTG/line pipes
  • Welded light gauge steel H sections
  • Steel plates for building structures
  • Tinplate, tin-free steel and laminated steel sheets
  • High-tensile strength steel sheets for building structures
  • Steel bars and wire products
  • Structure steel plates
  • Steel sheet products
  • Process-omission steel bar products
  • Process-omission steel wire products
  • Steels for containers and packaging
  • Rail products
  • Electrical steel sheets
  • Nickel plated steel sheets
  • Steel sheet pile products
  • Domestic general-purpose steel pipes and tubes (for piping and structural use)
  • Titanium sheets
  • High-alloy OCTG and line pipes
  • Welded steel pipes for mechanical use
  • Spiral welded steel pipe piles and spiral welded steel pipe sheet piles
  • Titanium plates

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