Achieving Sustainable Outcomes with Steel
BlueScope is committed to creating products designed not just for durability and performance, but also with sustainability and compliance at top of mind. Design and specify with confidence, knowing that COLORBOND® steel is manufactured with these environmental and sustainability considerations:
Supporting a circular economy
Steel itself is 100% recyclable. Steel’s inherent properties allow it to be reused or recycled without loss of quality over and over again. COLORBOND® steel incorporates recycled steel content1, in addition to the steel that is reclaimed within BlueScope’s steelmaking, coating and painting operations.
Designed for longer life
Innovations to improve durability and resilience such as Activate® technology can help conserve resources and energy that may otherwise be invested in products with shorter life spans. COLORBOND® steel with Activate® technology incorporates BlueScope’s industry-leading metallic coating to provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The coating incorporates aluminium, zinc and magnesium (designated ‘AM’) in unique composition and microstructure and was developed to improve corrosion resistance compared to aluminium/zinc alloy coating (‘AZ’). The compounds ‘activate’ the metal coating to provide more effective, longer-lasting sacrificial protection to COLORBOND® steel products.2
BlueScope is a founding member of ResponsibleSteel™
The industry’s first global multi-stakeholder standard and certification initiative supports the responsible sourcing and production of steel. BlueScope’s Port Kembla, NSW Steelworks, where the steel base in COLORBOND® steel is manufactured, is certified to the ResponsibleSteel™ Standard version 1.1. For more information see our video or register for our CPD presentation accredited by Refuel.
Global GreenTagCertTM GreenRate™ Level A Certification
Selected BlueScope products are certified with this program, which provides a holistic sustainability assessment of building products to ensure they meet the GreenRate™ criteria and the requirements of the Green Star rating tools’ Sustainable Products credits.3
Visit the Global GreenTag website to check which BlueScope products have been certified and their certification status. Certificates are also available for download
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
EPDs are available for selected COLORBOND® steel products. An EPD, based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), provides transparent and credible information about the environmental impacts of a product across its lifecycle. EPDs are recognised in environmental rating tools such as Green Star and IS Rating. To find out more, read our article and download COLORBOND® steel’s EPD’s.
Rated for environmental performance
COLORBOND® steel’s environmental and sustainability credentials are recognised by a number of national and international building rating tools. These credentials can help building owners, developers, and designers to achieve and improve upon desired ratings.
Green Star
Green Star is Australia’s largest voluntary sustainability rating system for buildings, building fit-outs and communities. Launched by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) in 2003, Green Star assesses the sustainability attributes of a project. Different categories of sustainability impact allocate ‘credits’ that define clear outcomes a project must meet. Once all credits achieved are compared against credits available in the rating tool, a project can be awarded a certified Green Star rating. Currently, the use of COLORBOND® steel can contribute to the achievement of a number of Green Star credits. For more information see our Green Building Rating Tools & Schemes article.
NABERS
The National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) is a rating system that measures the environmental performance of Australian commercial buildings and tenancies. NABERS rates the energy efficiency, water usage, waste management and indoor environment quality of a building or tenancy and its impact on the environment. Providing a national standard to measure and compare similar buildings, commercial office buildings can be rated on a scale of zero to six stars. As Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems typically account for the majority of energy costs in a commercial building, the range of COLORBOND® steel cool roofing colours can play an important role in increasing a building’s energy efficiency by potentially helping to reduce equipment loads, which may contribute to improving the building’s NABERS rating.
Infrastructure Sustainability Rating
COLORBOND® steel is also included in the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia’s ISupply Directory which connects sustainable products and services with projects and assets undertaking Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) ratings.
- Across the range of steel products manufactured by BlueScope in Australia, the average recycled content (according to recycled content categories defined in ISO 14021:2016) in the steel is 25.0%, which includes pre- and post-consumer recycled materials. Scrap and iron-bearing materials generated and reclaimed from BlueScope’s steelmaking, including the BF-BOS process up to slab casting, represent 1.7% of the product mass, which is not reported as recycled content. Scrap arising from downstream processes, such as plate and coil milling, rolling, tempering, annealing, pickling, metallic coating, painting, rollforming and/or fabrication are included as pre-consumer recycled content. The figures provided are based on FY23 data. For the latest recycled content figures please contact BlueScope Steel Direct on 1800 800 789.
- Activate® technology is not available for COLORBOND® steel products with a galvanised steel substrate.
- This applies to COLORBOND® steel for roofing and walling (XRW) with Activate® technology in the 22 core colours in the Classic finish (0.42mm and 0.48mm). Excludes COLORBOND® steel products with galvanised steel substrate.
Further information
- Compass 2022 Video - Sustainability and Climate Action at BlueScope
- More Sustainability content from BlueScope on Steel.com.au
- Explore our Cool Roofing resources
- Register for BlueScope's Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course, Overview of ResponsibleSteel™, accredited by Refuel.