Natural Capital
Net Zero
by 2045
Tata Steel is committed to responsible environmental stewardship, ensuring optimal use of natural resources while minimising ecological impact. Its focus on circularity, conservation, and innovation drives long-term sustainability across our operations and value chain.
Water Harvesting Park, Noamundi
Raw material
Steelmaking hinges on iron ore, coke, and flux as its key raw materials, with ~60% of its costs incurred till the hot metal stage, 70% of which is from coking coal.
Tata Steel meets 100% of its iron ore needs in India through its six captive mines (Noamundi, Katamati, Joda East, Khondbond, Vijaya II, and Koida) and has mining expansion plans at Gandhalpada and Kalamang. Additionally, Tata Steel owns iron ore assets in the Labrador and Northern Quebec regions of Canada.
In FY2024-25, Tata Steel achieved the highest-ever iron ore production of 40.5 MT in India and 3 MT in Canada.
The Company meets ~25% of its clean coal needs from two open-cast pits in West Bokaro and two underground collieries in Jharia. Advanced beneficiation plants—7 MTPA at West Bokaro, 2 MTPA at Jamadoba, and 1 MTPA at Bhelatand—convert raw coal into clean coal. By-products such as middlings, tailings, and rejects are repurposed for power generation, with water recycling ensuring efficiency. Tata Steel also operates four manganese and three chromite mines, with six ferroalloy plants producing ferrochrome, silicomanganese, and ferromanganese.
In FY2024-25, West Bokaro achieved its highest-ever clean coal production of 2.62 MT. The Bhelatand Coal Processing Plant in Jharia achieved the highest-ever throughput of 1.14 MT against the previous best of 1.11 MT in FY2022-23.
Water
Water, a critical resource, is used in cooling operations throughout the steelmaking process for descaling, dust scrubbing and other processes. Increasing urbanisation and climate change have made its availability a material concern. Being a responsible corporate citizen, Tata Steel constantly evaluates how best to use water, finding improvements both in conservation and reuse. The Company continues to optimise water use through reduction, recovery, recycling, and reuse of treated wastewater across all sites.
Treated effluents are reused for applications such as coke quenching, slag granulation, sinter/pellet mixing, gas cleaning, horticulture, and dust suppression.
Key initiatives in FY2024-25
- Jamshedpur: Increased recovery of treated water from the township sewage treatment plants and Stage 1 Water Neutrality Assessment
- Kalinganagar: Enhanced stormwater and treated water recovery at the Common Effluent Treatment Plant
- Meramandali: Replacing freshwater with treated water in the Raw Material Handling System
- Gamharia: Automation of interlocks at storage sumps for optimised water use
- Arresting underground water leakages at all sites
Tata Steel Thailand follows a Zero Discharge approach, treating and reusing all wastewater. Over the past five years, it has reduced specific water consumption by 42% across sites— demonstrating strong commitment to water stewardship.
JN Tata Park, West Bokaro
Air
Air is crucial for steelmaking processes. It is used in the blast furnace to burn coke, providing the heat needed to melt iron ore and produce pig iron. In basic oxygen steelmaking, pure oxygen is used to refine the pig iron into steel, lowering carbon content.
At the same time, the emissions from steel works affects the quality of air, a shared resource. Tata Steel is conscious of its impact and employs advanced air pollution control technologies and energy-efficient operations to maintain a healthy ambient air quality in its communities. Real-time monitoring, along with tracking of absolute emissions and AQI supports effective emission control. Reducing fugitive emissions remains a key priority. Significant reductions in stack dust emissions have been achieved across India operations.
Stack dust emissions
- Jamshedpur: 0.184 kg/tcs 98% reduction v/s FY1994-95
- Kalinganagar: 0.339 kg/tcs 74% reduction v/s FY2016-17
- Meramandali: 0.459 kg/tcs 51% reduction since acquisition in FY2018-19
- Gamharia: 0.981 kg/tcs 65% reduction since acquisition in FY2019-20
At Tata Steel Nederland, various upgrades under the Roadmap Plus programme have reduced environmental impact significantly.
Sustaining the Capital
While Tata Steel’s operations interact with the environment, availing renewable and non-renewable resources for steel production, the Company is conscious of using them responsibly. Tata Steel is committed to minimising its environmental impact through its Environmental Policy focused on water, waste, air emissions, biodiversity, and the circular economy principles. All sites are certified to ISO 14001:2015, ensuring continuous improvements and reduced environmental footprint. By consistently working towards restoring, replenishing, rejuvenating, recycling and substituting, Tata Steel ensures the long-term sustainability of these critical resources.
Scrap for steelmaking
By increasing the use of available scrap in the steelmaking process, Tata Steel reduces the need to extract raw materials to produce steel. Tata Steel Nederland aims to raise its scrap steel usage in its traditional manufacturing process, from 17% to approximately 30% by 2030, which will require an annual intake of about 2 MT of steel scrap. EAF implementation will enable Tata Steel UK to increase its use of scrap within steelmaking from around 17% to over 70%. This will also reduce the amount of scrap currently exported from the UK. Tata Steel Thailand already uses the 100% scrap-based EAF route for steelmaking, which relies on 100% recycled scrap steel. In India, for the Company’s upcoming 100% scrap-based EAF in Ludhiana, the ferrous scrap would be sourced through the Steel Recycling Business (SRB). The Company is also adding infrastructure to increase scrap recycling within its traditional steelmaking setup.
Estimated increase in scrap use at Tata Steel UK
Solid waste management
Aiming for a 100% utilisation of by-products and zero waste to landfill, the Company manages ~18 million tonnes of by-products annually. Facilities in Jamshedpur, Kalinganagar, Meramandali, and Gamharia have consistently achieved 100% solid waste utilisation. Value added by-products includes branded steel slag products— Tata Aggreto, Tata Nirman, and Tata Dureco—used for creating sustainable infrastructure. At Gopalpur, a 1,500-metre concrete road was built using ~3,000 cubic metres of ferrochrome slag (5-20 mm) in place of stone chips. At IJmuiden, 97% of all residuals are reused in operations or by third parties. Tata Steel Thailand has achieved a 99.73% waste utilisation rate since April 2014. It also trains staff on waste management, offers ‘Cut and Bend’ rebar to reduce on-site waste, and has upgraded processes to meet new regulations effective from November 2023.
Solid waste utilisation at Tata Steel Limited
Biodiversity management
To ensure natural ecosystem health, Tata Steel has developed Biodiversity Management Plans (BMPs) for 27 sites in India. Tata Steel Nederland implements BMPs using ecological assessments and biodiversity sensitivity maps. At its IJmuiden site, diverse habitats—including wet dune valleys and herb-rich grasslands— support species like the sand lizard and natterjack toad. In 2025, the Shotton site of Tata Steel UK received the Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark for its efforts towards biodiversity management.
BMPs developed across operations