Google has agreed to buy environmental attribute certificates (EACs) tied to up to 91,000 tonnes of steel from Stegra’s 740MW plant in Boden, northern Sweden.
A market still short of physical supply
The deal shows how buyers are trying to secure low-carbon steel before supply exists in volume. Stegra says near-zero emission steel will initially be available only in limited quantities and at few locations. Certificates let committed buyers address their emissions even when direct purchase is hard because of geographical or value chain separation.
How the certificates work
The mechanism is known as “book and claim”. The environmental attributes are separated from the physical product, so the steel is delivered without them and the attributes are delivered separately as EACs. Stegra applies this to its non-prime steel, which is made in the same process as the rest of its output, using green hydrogen (hydrogen produced by electrolysis with renewable power) and renewable electricity. Every mill makes some non-prime steel, Stegra said, but the share is larger when a new mill starts up.
Safeguards against double counting
To prevent the same emission cut being claimed twice, the buyer of the physical steel must commit not to make any green claims. The certificates then represent the avoided CO2 emissions from producing and using the steel. Google can use them to address steel-related emissions in its own operations, including the construction of data centres, without buying or transporting the steel.
Scope and cash flow for Stegra
The agreement covers an initial year, with an ambition to add volumes over its length. Neither source discloses a price. Hydrogen Insight reported that all electrolysers at Boden have now been installed, and Stegra says the certificates will add to cash flow during its early years of operation and ramp-up.
Financing and production targets
Stegra closed a €1.4bn ($1.6bn) financing round in June to complete construction, after securing €6.5bn in funding in January 2024, according to Hydrogen Insight. The company aims to reach five million tonnes of green steel a year by 2030 once the plant is complete. It will use hydrogen produced on site to extract iron from ore, replacing the coking coal traditionally used in steelmaking.
What Google and Stegra said
Adam Elman, Google’s director of sustainability for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said certificates are “another vital mechanism” alongside physical procurement. He said Google had proven the model with clean electricity and extended it to sustainable aviation fuel. Stegra chief executive Henrik Henriksson said Google is one of the few global players able to move markets towards decarbonized products.
Implications for the sector
For Stegra, the deal offers early revenue from a product that is otherwise hard to sell in volume. For the wider industry, it tests whether certificate sales can help finance new clean-tech producers before physical supply matures. The limits are also clear. The first-year volume is small against the company’s 2030 target, and the sources give no price, so it is not yet possible to judge what premium buyers will pay for the attributes alone.
