International recognition for SCS scheme continues to grow

ACRS’ SCS Scheme* continues to gain international recognition for its leading approach, independence, and globally-aligned relevance. 

This recognition highlights the credibility of SCS in addressing both the environmental and compliance needs of the steel industry, and its importance for developers, builders, and policymakers who want assurance that certified steel meets the highest global standards.

Global steel intel report recognises SCS 

The second edition (2025) of ‘Green Steel Standards, Certifications & Brands’ from specialist global steel and metals intelligence provider, Kallanish, provides information on navigating the green steel landscape.

The report covers steel standards and certifications developed to support the industry’s journey to decarbonisation – certification processes that ‘recognise companies for their efforts to produce steel with a reduced environmental impact.’

The report notes that the steel industry is one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG), accounting for around 8% of industrial CO2 emissions, and as such its carbon footprint has become a critical priority.

The global standardized framework for measuring and managing GHG emissions, the GHG Protocol, underlies much of the industry’s sustainability practices. The report goes on to explain that, complementing this framework, is the Sustainable Constructional Steel (SCS) Scheme,* “an accredited, third-party certification programme developed to assess and improve the sustainability performance of steel products and the organisations that manufacture and process them.”

The report notes key elements of the scheme, including

- LCAs & EPDs: lifecycle assessment calculations and third-party verified environmental product declarations, ensuring transparency and consistency in environmental reporting

- Governance & stakeholder input: input from a wide range of stakeholders – including steel producers, construction contractors, green building councils and regulators – in the development and operation of the scheme.

- Certification Framework and Methodology: assessment against a wide-ranging set of environmental, social, ethical, and economic criteria, including audits covering 140 criteria, and a multi-level rating system.

Australian construction companies use SCS for better outcomes

In Australia, domestic stakeholders support the Scheme for its usability, traceability and transparency in delivering projects.

“John Holland, as a head contractor responsible for the delivery of projects across the built environment, tracks and reports on the embodied carbon of these projects to meet regulatory and client requirements. 

"Typically, the traceability of construction materials' embodied carbon concludes at the point of a published Environmental Product Declaration. For steel products that undergo further modifications by processors or fabricators, the embodied carbon from these additional stages cannot be reported with complete certainty. 

"The ACRS Sustainable Construction Steel Scheme facilitates traceability and transparency of embodied carbon and other environmental indicators during these stages, establishing a “carbon chain of custody” from raw material through to the processor/fabricator gate.

"This enables John Holland projects to, in turn, provide more certainty in steel embodied carbon data to our clients and for Scope 3 emissions reporting in future.”

- Patrick Campbell, Operations Sustainability Manager, Building/Infrastructure/Major Projects, John Holland

As the adoption of the SCS Scheme accelerates, the industry is better equipped to tackle ESG issues through the supply line and in the built environment.

*The report refers to the CARES Sustainable Constructional Steel (SCS) Scheme, of which ACRS’ SCS Scheme is the Australian/New Zealand Standards version.