Meta has signed a multiyear agreement with Swedish company Stegra to receive certificates linked to low-carbon steel for a plant under construction in Boden, northern Sweden. The companies announced the agreement in a joint statement on November 12. Meta is a member of the RMI Sustainable Steel Buyers Platform, which brings together major steel consumers.
The independently verified certificates will allow Meta to claim emissions reductions associated with steel production without taking delivery of the metal itself. Meta expects this to help reduce emissions in its supply chain, increase demand for lower-carbon construction materials and help finance the launch of new production capacity.
Steel is one of the largest sources of embodied carbon emissions in the construction of data centers. As the industry expands, companies are increasingly seeking materials with a smaller carbon footprint. The RMI platform helps participants in steel-intensive industries coordinate purchases of low-emissions products. Environmental attribute certificates are used when buying physical steel directly is difficult.
“The green steel market is still at an early stage, and physical supplies are not yet sufficient to meet demand,” said Devon Lake, head of Net Zero strategy at Meta.
“Environmental attribute certificates allow us to work toward reducing these emissions now, with independent verification, and direct demand toward production that is only just coming online. That is how the green steel market takes shape.”
Stegra plans to use renewable electricity and green hydrogen. According to the company, this production method could reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 95% compared with conventional blast-furnace steelmaking.
How Stegra’s certificates work
Stegra’s environmental attribute certificates (EACs) are based on a “book-and-claim” system: the environmental benefits are separated from the physical metal. The steel covered by the certificates is produced using green hydrogen and renewable electricity, and its emissions are close to zero compared with conventional production.
The physical steel is sold without its environmental attributes, so its buyer cannot claim emissions reductions—that right belongs to the certificate holder. Stegra applies this system to nonprime steel, which does not meet all the specifications for top-quality products. New plants typically produce more of this type of steel in their first years of operation, even though it is made using the same low-emissions process as Stegra’s other products.
In May 2023, Platts, a division of S&P Global Energy, launched a carbon-accounted hot-rolled coil price assessment for Northwest Europe. It is calculated as the sum of Platts’ daily carbon-accounted steel premium and its daily hot-rolled coil assessment on an EXW Ruhr basis.
Over the observation period, the price fell from 920 euros per metric ton on an EXW basis to 820 euros per ton on November 11. The low of about 595 euros per ton on an EXW basis was recorded in November 2024 and July 2025.
By Annalisa Villa.