Global challenges – GMH Gruppe

A vital role in the markets of the future

The right solutions

Experts believe that 70 per cent of the global population will soon be living in cities with ten million or more residents. This creates significant challenges regarding transportation, housing and mobility. Challenges that require innovative solutions made from steel.

Steel is not simply vital to manufacturing. It is also vital to climate protection. The agreed goal is to cut greenhouse emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 1990. And the share of renewables is set to rise to at least 35 per cent of gross electricity consumption. These ambitious objectives are simply not possible without steel.

Efficiency in the automotive industry

Steel is a driver of efficiency. High-tensile steel is a key example, and the material with the highest growth rate within the automotive industry. It enables the manufacture of vehicles that are lighter, more fuel-efficient and more durable. By 2030, 38 per cent of a typical car will comprise high-tensile steel, compared to 13 per cent at present. Even today, this material can deliver significant weight and carbon emission savings. Our steel plant in Georgsmarienhütte, for instance, cooperated with a major German subcontractor to the automotive industry to develop H2 steel. H2 is highly resource and cost-efficient, not least as it can be manufactured without the need for scarce alloy elements.

Through the use of high-tensile steels such as H2 it is already possible to exert fuel injection pressures of up to 2,500 bar. This ensures fuel is highly atomised, creating ideal combustion conditions, and minimising particulate emissions. Our next objective is to take H2 to a new level, enabling pressures of up to 3,000 bar. 

Innovations build a better future

We generate a variety of bright ideas, in a variety of ways. Through close collaboration with customers, and through participation in research projects and think tanks, for example. But above all, we see ourselves as enablers, as partners who make things possible. We start by addressing basic questions such as: What does the market demand? What does the customer need? We are certain that it is essential to consider these questions. Otherwise, innovation is reduced to an abstract exercise without real-world benefits. And that is how GMH Gruppe approaches climate change and its mitigation. This is an important issue, and one that urgently requires answers – at the same time, it offers us as an industry opportunities to make a positive difference.