Posted on 06 May 2025
The European Commission has initiated a public consultation as part of its impact assessment on different policy options related to the Clean Industrial Deal, which include a voluntary label specifying the carbon intensity of steel products, Kallanish notes.
The Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act, a key part of the Clean Industrial Deal, aims to increase sustainable and resilient industrial production in energy-intensive industrial sectors (EIIs) in the EU by supporting decarbonisation investments.
Its three objectives are to speed up permitting procedures for industrial decarbonisation; Identify and promote priority industrial decarbonisation projects and clusters; and create and protect European lead markets for European low-carbon products.
The last of these will consider introducing sustainability and resilience criteria and minimum EU content requirements in public – and in some circumstances, private – procurement in strategic sectors. This aims to create lead markets for low-carbon industrial products.
Also assessed will be promoting industrial products with a low carbon intensity, including options for an EU label. This will develop a voluntary label for steel based on EU Emissions Trading System data and building on the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) methodology, the Commission says.
The impact assessment will also consider incentives for uptake of clean carbon feedstock, including carbon capture and utilisation, sustainable biomass and recycled waste.
In a continuation of its recent language that has been strongly supportive of industry, the Commission says: “The absence of additional EU action would maintain the status quo, increasing the risk of losing European strategic industries and becoming excessively dependent on non-EU countries for the EU’s green, digital, defence and economic security objectives.”
It admits problems can only partially be addressed by member states due to the integrated nature of the market for energy-intensive industrial products and that of energy markets.
EIIs are “of strategic importance to the EU’s resilience, security and economic prosperity. They are the key starting point for many value chains, providing raw, processed and intermediate materials to downstream sectors,” the Commission adds.
They therefore need “urgent support to decarbonise, electrify as well as tackle high energy costs, unfair global competition and complex regulations that jeopardise their business case, harm their competitiveness and weaken European resilience,” it notes.
The consultation is open for feedback for 12 weeks from 2 May and is open to all citizens and stakeholders.
Source:Kallanish
