Water
Using less, re-using more
Steel-making uses water for cooling - a total of some 2.2 billion m3 across the whole Group in 2006. But the circumstances at individual plants differ. Some water supplies are plentiful and unrestricted, while others can make use of seawater, as do the French plants at Dunkerque and Fos-sur-Mer.
Overall, we're aiming to cut the amount of fresh water we need, and re-use more of it. This is why we use net water consumption as a performance indicator. Of the 2.2 billion m3 used in 2006, 1.97 billion m3 was recycled and discharged, which means that overall our net consumption was 2.3 m3 per tonne of steel.
Sites in areas of drought or water shortage are our highest priority for improvement, and eight of our plants in Brazil, Spain and South Africa are now re-using all of their water.