According to the provisional report on greenhouse gas emissions for 2023, published in July 2024 by the environment ministry, the industrial sector (manufacturing, energy and construction) emitted 533 tonnes of greenhouse gases, an increase of 30.7% year-on-year. Compare that to the reduction target set for this sector: between 2005 and 2030 it is meant to reduce emmissions by 45%. Although the industrial sector, and manufacturing in particular, does not have the same emissions levels as transport (4,096 tonnes of CO2, it still faces challenges in the face of the climate emergency.
Peintures Robin, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2027, is one of Luxembourg’s pioneering companies in this field. “Our production site is based in Useldange, and the river flows right next to it, so one of our priorities has always been to respect this beautiful environment,” explains Catherine Heinrichs, HR manager, who began her career with the company 26 years ago.
We have customers who are also sufficiently responsible and are prepared to pay a little more for low-carbon steel.
“For more than 25 years,” says Heinrichs, “we have decided to phase out and gradually replace hazardous products with products that are more respectful of health and the environment. In the early 2000s, when the plant was being rebuilt, we developed a range of water-based products to replace the range of solvent-based products with equivalent properties, in particular primers and lacquers for various applications on all surfaces (wood, metal, etc.) At present, we only sell water-based products to private customers. We have been developing our Robingreen range for over ten years, the first product of which is Verdello, a matt wall paint that’s made from 100% bio-sourced raw materials.”
Peintures Robin, which employs more than 100 people, had sales that exceeded €30m in 2023. It produces around 4,000 tonnes of paint a year and sells some 65% of its products in Luxembourg. “Our watchword is: for private individuals, no danger; and for professionals, a ban on the entry of new CMRs [editor’s note: carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic chemical agents] as well as ongoing research into solutions that comply with our values of ecology, safety and health.”
SDK and Luxinnovation
Peintures Robin has won the Fedil Environment Prize four times, most recently in 2021 for its “RobinLoop” product, made from recycled paints and lacquers from the SuperDrecksKëscht (SDK) sorting centres. The SuperDrecksKëscht has been a key public player in waste management for over 30 years, says Romaine Stracks, deputy coordinator for complementary activities and advisor for companies at the SDK, who explains that the organisation has two main missions: “to advise and label companies and to collect specific or problematic waste.” As of 2023, almost 3,500 companies had obtained the “SDK fir Betriber” label.
Luxinnovation, through several of its clusters, is another public player supporting businesses in the transition to energy and sustainable development. “The energy crisis is one of the major challenges facing manufacturers today,” says Caroline Muller, manager of Luxinnovation’s materials and manufacturing cluster. “The price of energy and therefore the financial challenge of being able to pay the bills are a big problem for companies, particularly those in the industrial sector, because they are often energy guzzlers.”
When companies embark on the energy transition, it also often means heavy investments--but do those purchases necessarily pay off? “It depends on the investment,” says Muller. “Changing your boiler, for example, can be relatively quick, but when you invest in installing photovoltaic panels or wind turbines, the payback is bound to take much longer. As for SMEs, which make up the bulk of the country’s industrial companies, they are much more mixed than large groups like ArcelorMittal. They often start with insulation measures. A company that uses ovens, for example, is going to have to manage heat loss, and before investing in a new electric oven that would consume a lot of energy, as well as costing a lot of money, the company will already be tempted to invest in insulating the oven.”
To support these businesses, the government introduced a new investment tax credit scheme on 1 January 2024. This measure is designed to support businesses in the digital transformation and environmental transition of their activities. Under certain conditions, the new measure allows businesses to benefit from a tax bonus of up to 18% of the investment and operating expenses they incur to support their digital transformation or reduce their environmental impact.
“For many SMEs, the priority is simply to keep their customers and remain competitive, particularly by controlling their energy consumption,” says Charles-Albert Florentin, manager of the CleanTech cluster. “This involves, among other things, the use of sensors, intelligent technologies, consumption monitoring software, etc. These are measured investments that are already having a real impact.
“In the future,” he continues, “there will be other interesting areas to explore, such as the reuse of water, the recovery of waste heat, geothermal energy, etc. There is potential at many levels. Recycling concrete is also a topical issue. A study has been commissioned on this issue in Luxembourg with a view to assessing the opportunity of producing recycled concrete in the country.” Each cubic metre of concrete releases around 280 kilograms of CO2.
ArcelorMittal
As the country’s eighth-largest employer (as of 1 January 2024), the Luxembourg-headquartered ArcelorMittal employs 3,520 people in the country and is one of the world’s leading producers of steel beams and sheet piling. “Our day-to-day business is to develop our products and our productivity in order to remain competitive on the market, by improving costs and quality,” says Henri Reding, country manager of ArcelorMittal Luxembourg. “But the environment as a whole has also become one of our priorities in recent years.”
The group is investing both to reduce its CO2 emissions--in January 2024, for example, ArcelorMittal Long Products Luxembourg announced an investment of €17.6m to reduce its diffuse dust emissions at Differdange by 80%--and to produce more responsibly and ecologically. The ResponsibleSteel certification of the ArcelorMittal Long Products Luxembourg, Belval, Differdange and Rodange sites was renewed last summer. As part of its decarbonisation drive, ArcelorMittal Luxembourg has also confirmed its plans to invest in a new electric arc furnace at its Long Products Luxembourg site in Belval in 2023, “for a total investment of €100m, with the support of the economy ministry.”
And it is in Differdange that the Olympic rings will be melted down to be transformed into beams for ArcelorMittal’s world headquarters currently under construction in Kirchberg. “In the grand duchy,” Reding says, “more than 95% of our steel production is based on recycled scrap, and for us this is the best low-carbon steel we can find. Its price is a little more expensive than conventional steel, around 5%, but we have customers who are also sufficiently responsible and are prepared to pay a little more for this quality. This represents around 7% of our production [editor’s note: 140,000 tonnes are produced each year in Luxembourg], a figure that has doubled in a year.”
ArcelorMittal has, since 2020, produced an annual report on its development towards becoming more ecologically friendly. Some highlights:
100% electric production
ArcelorMittal is committed to achieving group-wide carbon neutrality by 2050, with an intermediate target of reducing CO2 emissions by 35% by 2030 in Europe and 25% worldwide. The number of projects undertaken each year is vast and varied. For example, since 1997, raw steel production in Luxembourg has been 100% electric. Some 98% of the raw material used in its steelworks comes from the recycling of metal waste, and the electricity used to run the furnaces is mainly of carbon-free origin. For its part, the Bissen site aims to become the first entirely green plant of the group’s WireSolutions subsidiary by 2026: green, productive, profitable.
A solar park in Differdange
ArcelorMittal’s European logistics centre (AMCLE) in Differdange has also announced that it will host one of the largest solar farms in the country, with more than 8,600 photovoltaic panels on its roof, covering 37,500m2. “The AMCLE will thus be self-sufficient in electricity,” says the groups website, “and the surplus will be used primarily by ArcelorMittal’s industrial facilities in Luxembourg.” And given that the steel sector is the largest industrial emitter of CO2, producing 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the group will continue its efforts in the years to come.
Another key issue: water management
“In Luxembourg,” says Luxinnovation, “as elsewhere, water resources are under pressure from the combined effects of climate change and population growth. Better management and, above all, the reuse of wastewater are becoming a necessity in order to reduce the pressure on groundwater and surface water. It is estimated that 40% of industrial wastewater in Europe could be reused.”
It was around these themes that some 40 experts met on 10 December 2024 at an ideation workshop organised by Luxinnovation, in partnership with the consortium of partners in the Interreg Greater Green + project. “What emerged from the discussions was that, technically, everything already exists,” says Muller. “But the returns on investment from such wastewater reuse processes are still too uncertain, even too far off, to arouse any immediate interest. But we’re going to have to look into the matter.”
Whatever their size, workforce or turnover, all of the country’s industrial companies are faced with the same climate- and environment-related issues, with the challenge of remaining competitive with their European and global rivals.
This article, , was written for the issue of Paperjam magazine, published on 29 January. The content is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the website as a contribution to the complete Paperjam archive.
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