Circular Valley® Forum 2025: The future of the metal industry in the circular economy

The Circular Valley^® Forum 2025 took place in Wuppertal on November 14. Dr. Heike Denecke-Arnold represented Salzgitter Flachstahl on a panel. Together with other guests from Aurubis, VALE, DERA, and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, she discussed the status of the metal industry and its opportunities and challenges on the path to a functioning circular economy.

The non-profit Circular Valley^® Foundation aims to bring together the relevant stakeholders. Across industries and technologies, companies, startups, science, and politics are jointly developing solutions for the transformation to a true circular economy.

Circularity has always been a central component of steel production. In addition to the recycling and reuse of scrap, the gases produced are also used efficiently to optimize the energy efficiency of production processes.

Steel scrap is already an important secondary raw material for steel production – both via the primary steel route using blast furnaces and converters and for the electric arc route. With the transformation to low-carbon steel production, its importance will continue to grow, as will the demands on the quality of the material. That is why Salzgitter is also investing in modern shredder technologies.

Through closed-loop models, the scrap generated by customers is fed back into steel production. As part of the SALCOS^® - Salzgitter LOW CO₂ Steelmaking transformation program, this scrap can be melted down in the Salzgitter Group's electric arc furnaces using green electricity and processed into new low-carbon steel products.

This closes a value creation cycle that is both ecologically and economically convincing: The panel discussion clearly showed that those who invest in circular technologies and partnerships today are also laying the foundations for a resilient, climate-neutral industry of tomorrow.