Steel’s green recovery

SaMI’s founding director Brian Edy on the UK steel industry’s role in a green economy.

Working in steel has given me so many fantastic opportunities and experiences. Given the chance to create a steel innovation centre, I took it as a chance to give something back.

We founded SaMI at Swansea University to support UK steel innovation. The fact we could innovate the steel industry’s carbon heavy processes and become a real global leader in innovation was a real driving force in creating SaMI.

I saw it as a chance to invest in manufacturing. And an opportunity to preserve and create jobs to benefit the communities that we live and work in.

Steel in a green economy

It’s important we invest in steel. We are all reliant on steel. Society depends on steel – it’s easy for us to forget that.  Every successful economy has a strong steel economy and as a society we need to be behind our steel industry.

At SaMI by working closely with the steel industry and its supply chain, we are helping with the innovation and adoption of new technologies and a circular economy, for example, to develop lower carbon products and processes and to recover and re-use scarce materials.

Steel is in every part of our lives and so by decarbonising steel we are helping to decarbonise society. 

Retaining, increasing and improving our manufacturing capability are vital for the UK’s green economy. Decarbonisation of the steel industry will help enable that green economy. 

Industrial decarbonisation

Part of SaMI’s success lies in helping industry benefit from our expertise in steel and metals innovation through our collaborative research partnerships. We work closely with industry customers, from across several sectors, not just steel. We listen to what they need and we deliver practical solutions.

When we created SaMI we wanted to create an open culture, a culture of empowerment, freedom to make decisions, try new things, make mistakes and learn from them to innovate further. This is what the steel industry is doing – learning from past mistakes to transition to an industry fit for the future.

The future for the UK manufacturing sector in a green economy lies in decarbonisation through research and innovation.

SaMI can help deliver that.

Contributor Brian Edy

March 2021