In the early summer, the sunshine is perfect and the warm breeze is intoxicating. From the office area of Shagang, walking eastward for more than two hundred meters, a large green area is laid out in front of eyes. Up several stone steps, there is Shagang’s “Hanging Garden”. Strolling in the garden, the grass and green trees are lush, children are chasing and playing, and the old are sitting by the flower bed and chatting leisurely, just like walking into “the Peach Blossoms” in the reinforced concrete forest.

How can a mega steel enterprise with an annual steel production capacity of over 40 million tons achieve a harmonious coexistence with ecology and humanities? Adhering to the development concept of “innovation-driven, environmental protection first”, Shagang firmly implements the development strategy of “building a high-quality base and green steel city”, focusing on the “double carbon” goal, with a total investment of more than 30 billion RMB in recent years. Shagang has been comprehensively promoting hundreds of environmental protection projects, such as gas, water, sound and slag, etc., achieving ultra-low emission standards for the whole process, upgrading technology for the whole process, and optimizing product structure in all aspects, so as to walk out of a green and low-carbon transformation and upgrading road with Shagang’s characteristics, showing the world the new image of a clean and beautiful steel enterprise with the new posture of “Green Steel City”.

In April this year, Shagang’s Gas-steam Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) project started full-scale construction. As an advanced power generation technology, gas-steam combined cycle power plant has many advantages such as high efficiency, low consumption, fast start-up, flexible regulation and low environmental pollution. The total investment of the project is about 1.6 billion RMB, and after its completion, it will further improve the efficiency of gas resource utilization of Shagang, and is expected to increase the annual power generation by 750 million kWh and save more than 80,000 tons of standard coal. At the same time, Shagang focuses on improving the efficiency of energy use in the whole process, through the implementation of coking, sintering, iron making, steel making, steel rolling, auxiliary facilities and other aspects of technology and equipment innovation, optimization and improvement, to achieve a significant reduction in the consumption of coke, pulverized coal, gas, electricity, etc. In the National Development and Reform Commission’s energy-saving technology promotion catalogue, 90% of the energy-saving technologies have been applied in Shagang.

Adhering to the circular economy concept of “reduction, reuse and recycling”, Shagang strives to build a full chain and full cycle green development pattern with the main line of “source reduction - intelligent classification - efficient transformation - clean utilization - intensive processing”. The annual benefit of circular economy reaches more than 10% of the total benefit of the enterprise, which not only beautifies the ecology, but also adds full vitality to the development of the enterprise. On this basis, the enterprise also actively develops “urban mines”, brings social renewable wastes such as scraps into the steel production cycle system, and continues to promote the transformation of industrial and social resource concepts and utilization methods.

In the process of green Shagang construction, Shagang has made every effort to do a good job in “water use”, invested in the construction of more than 40 sets of circulating water treatment systems, recycled all industrial wastewater from various production processes, and the comprehensive recycling utilization rate of water resources exceeded 98%. According to the national level A standard, Shagang has built a domestic wastewater collection and treatment system in different regions to provide effective circulating water for various workshops. In addition, Shagang also actively uses the tail water of the urban sewage treatment plant as the make-up water for the enterprise’s circulating water treatment system, reducing the annual consumption of new water by more than 5 million tons.

Taking full advantage of scientific and technological innovation and equipment, Shagang continues to promote green design, develop and produce green steel products with high strength, high toughness, hydrogen and corrosion resistance, durability, light weight and recyclability, and provides downstream users with green steel solutions for synergistic carbon reduction. HRB400, a high-strength corrosion-resistant steel bar pioneered by the enterprise in the world, has a corrosion resistance of more than 10 times that of ordinary steel bars with a design service life of more than 120 years, laying the material foundation for low-carbon construction in the future. The independent development of Cr tire cord steel and other products provides a strong boost to the lightweight of automobiles, and makes the whole life cycle of steel products energy-saving and carbon-reduction from a vision to reality.

In accordance with the overall planning and step-by-step implementation path, greenery spreads within Shagang plant, realizing flowers in spring, shade in summer, fruits in autumn and green in winter. The green area of the whole company exceeds 2 million square meters. In the Yangtze River shoreline, Shagang invested more than 1 billion RMB to purify, green and beautify, implement “planting trees wherever there is space”, “paving asphalt concrete” on road and other projects to form a model industrial landscape with clear water and green shore, and create the ecological highland of Yangtze River waters.

Honorary titles such as National Energy Efficiency 4-Star Enterprise, national metallurgical industry “Clean and Environment Friendly Enterprise”, “Energy Efficiency Leader” of steel industry, Advanced Clean Production Enterprise of Jiangsu Province, Low Carbon Economy Demonstration Enterprise of Jiangsu Province etc. have become the most powerful testimony of Shagang’s green development achievements.

Nowadays, Shagang has focused on low-carbon innovative technologies breakthrough such as hydrogen metallurgy, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), green product research and development, and is forging ahead towards large-scale carbon emission reduction in the iron and steel industry.

“Shagang will insist on taking ‘Stability’ as the starting point and ‘Progress’ as the foothold of its work throughout the year, focusing on improving quality, adding green, seeking innovation, increasing intelligence and assuming responsibility in stability.” Shen Bin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Shagang Group, said that the enterprise will continue to promote low-carbon development and environmental protection upgrading, accelerate the construction of “Garden Plants” and “Clean Plants” and the industrialization promotion of the CASTRIP technology with international leading advantages, accelerate the application of international and domestic cutting-edge process technology, thus making the core competitiveness of the enterprise enter the first rank of the international steel industry.