Saarstahl Rail named Sustainability Champion 2024

Rail manufacturer Saarstahl Rail is this year’s winner of the Sustainability Championship Award in the Circularitycategory With its Sustainability Championship Award, Berlin Institute Supply Chain Management recognizes companies that have implemented outstanding sustainability concepts and solutions in the categories Circularity, Supply Chain/Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), and/or Energy Transformation, and as a result have systematically optimized their company for sustainability.

The French company Saarstahl Rail, which belongs to the German Saarstahl Group, impressed the jury panel of high-ranking scientists and business experts in the Circularity category with its established circular economy and resulting CO₂-reduced production method. With the rail steel produced in its electric arc furnace, Saarstahl Rail is the only company in Europe to market CO₂-reduced rails.

“We are thrilled to have won this award. Renowned international railroad companies have been relying on the high quality and environmental friendliness of our products for years. This award is further affirmation for us,” said Dr. Nadine Artelt, President Saarstahl Rail, at the award ceremony in Berlin.

As jury member Prof. Dr. Reinhold Kohler of Landshut University of Applied Sciences explained in his laudatory speech, the optimized production process via the electric arc furnace in combination with Saarstahl Rail’s economic cycle concept, which relies on recycling used rails, cuts CO₂ emissions by 70% compared to conventional production via a blast furnace route, which uses iron ore and coal as raw materials.

Nadine Artelt: “For a conventional rail order that uses 500,000 tons of green steel, this means one million tons of CO₂ emissions can be saved. This equals the amount of CO₂ produced by the entire transport sector in Germany in two and a half days. We are the only company in Europe that can enable a true mobility transition in the rail sector with our products, including in Germany.”