I would like to heartily welcome you to EMECR2017 that will be held in Kobe, Japan, in 2017 following on from the last fruitful meeting at ESEC2014 (European Steel Environment & Energy Congress), held in Teesside, UK, in 2014. The major themes of this conference will be energy efficiency and carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction, and also materials efficiency and product life cycles in the steel industry.
The main dilemma facing the steel industry is to keep a balance between improving environmental performance and maintaining cost competitiveness.
There is also a need to ensure that the steel industry provides sustainable products which meet society's growing needs against a background of future resource constraints and the need to mitigate climate change. The steel industry is required to improve energy efficiency for meeting these climate change targets accompanied with CO2 emission mitigation.
The improvement is one of the major contributors for reducing operational costs as well as improving environmental performance. The tool of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is being used to demonstrate the potential of steel. By considering the environmental performance of steel products with LCA analysis, recycling of steel products makes them highly competitive in sustainability terms.
These are the key challenges to be addressed by this conference. This conference will showcase innovation and technology, provide details of the latest industry solutions to energy and environmental issues, and will demonstrate how the steel industry is meeting the many challenges that it is currently facing.