In a market that is increasingly sensitive to and bound by virtuous environmental requirements, competitiveness among companies grows hand in hand with the need for visibility and differentiation from competing businesses.
In this context, every sustainability-oriented initiative is decisive, from actions aimed at greater energy efficiency to obtaining ‘environmental labels’.
Every company, respecting specific transparency standards, has the possibility to self-declare the environmental performance of its services or products, communicating the added value obtained by embracing green differentiation criteria.
Measure the circularity of the product
This is the case of Ferriere Nord SpA, the historic steel mill of the Pittini Group, which has not only chosen to characterise its products with the EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) but has also decided to turn to Circularity to calculate the circularity of its production line through the Material Circularity Indicator.
In a naturally circular context such as steel production, Ferriere Nord has embraced the principles of the Circular Economy of waste valorisation by implementing furnace slag refining processes as early as 1995: by doing so, the company has obtained a genuine registered trademark product, Granella®, which can be marketed as a filler for cement mixes.
To enhance the circularity of Ferriere Nord’s production system, Circularity calculated the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) of all its products according to the methodology of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a leader in the dissemination and definition of good circular practices.
The Material Circularity Indicator measures the circularity of a product by taking into consideration the amount of virgin raw material needed to produce it, the amount of irrecoverable waste generated during its entire life cycle, and its lifespan compared to the market average. The MCI can take a maximum value of 1, corresponding to a totally circular product.
The Material Circularity Indicator was calculated for each Ferriere Nord SpA product, including Granella®; the MCIs thus obtained were then aggregated into a single value obtained as a weighted average over the quantities produced, thus deriving an identification value for the entire production line. The final result confirms a Material Circularity Index for Ferriere Nord products of 0.86, a virtuous value demonstrating the Pittini Group’s commitment to adopting good circular and sustainable practices.
Ferriere Nord SpA is a concrete example of a Company aware that even environmental self-declarations can make a difference, guaranteeing a competitive advantage and contributing not only to the company’s solidity but also to the definition of a green image even for heavy industry companies.
