As part of our research process, we identified seven promising philanthropic sub-strategies and evaluated each sub-strategy's scale, feasibility, and funding need (see Table 1). For more information on these metrics and our research process, see Giving Green's Research Overview .
Table 1: Scale, feasibility, and funding need of approaches nonprofits use to decarbonize iron and steelWe chose to center sub-strategies that had at least two high ratings in our assessment. Based on the above evaluations, we think the most promising philanthropic sub-strategies are improving and accelerating the allocation of government innovation funds; supporting government low-carbon procurement commitments; and supporting governments in establishing regulatory frameworks . We also see strong potential for sub-strategies to support green trade policy; facilitate corporate low-carbon procurement commitments; and facilitate early-mover plant construction.
We expand on our reasoning for prioritizing these strategies in the following section. Further information on our reasoning for deprioritizing the remaining strategies can be found on Giving Green’s Research Dashboard .
Note: We could not find conclusive data about philanthropic funding at the sub-strategy level. Therefore, we hold our funding need ratings with low certainty. We think that, in general, steel has a high funding need, and we think it is plausible that we have underestimated the funding need of several of our ‘medium’ strategies, given our limited information about funder activity.
Improving and accelerating allocation of government innovation funds Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟢🟢🟢 HighScale: High. Currently available technologies are not yet cost-competitive enough to scale green steel.42 Unlocking and directing government innovation funding toward existing and early-stage pathways could expand the set of commercially viable routes to near-zero steel, such as by reducing green premiums for the DRI-EAF pathway and commercializing electrochemical pathways. Several funding pots are available, including the EU's Innovation Fund (~$46 billion USD across industry), the Japan Green Innovation Fund (~$18 billion across industry), Australia's Green Iron Fund (~$700 million USD), and the India National Green Steel Mission (~$520 million USD, in development).43
Large funds, such as the EU's €40 billion Innovation Fund, have struggled to deploy capital at scale. Midway through the fund's timeline, only €332 million had been paid out, with less than 5% of the anticipated emissions reductions.44
Feasibility: High. Commitments from governments around the world demonstrate that innovation funding is a priority for maintaining industrial competitiveness and meeting climate commitments. We think activities to improve the efficiency of fund deployment are especially feasible, since they maximize benefits for governments without increasing costs.
We think this sub-strategy is the most feasible in higher-income geographies with more developed innovation ecosystems. One counterexample is the U.S., which has pulled back on its innovation funding mechanisms under the Trump administration.45
Funding need: High. Our impression is that advocacy for innovation funding attracts less philanthropic funding than demand-side levers and regulation, and that its funding need has arguably grown as early-stage developers face capital constraints and the number of announced steel plants declined sharply from 2024 to 2025.46
Supporting government low-carbon procurement commitments Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟢🟢🟢 HighScale: High. Based on the current plant pipeline, green steel supply will likely exceed demand by 1.8-4.3x in 2030.47 As such, stronger demand signals are needed to justify further investment in green steel. Governments are among the largest buyers of steel, and public procurement is estimated to account for around 25% of global construction revenue.48 Procurement commitments are a key mechanism to unlock early markets for near-zero steel at meaningful scale, and securing demand was highlighted as the key barrier to reaching final investment decisions for 70 industry plants, representing $140 billion in investment.49
Feasibility: Medium. The World Economic Forum found four key challenges to implementing GPP from four civil society actors in the space: 1) consolidating and navigating decentralized procurement systems, 2) managing the green premium, 3) modernizing procurement frameworks, and 4) balancing immediate gains and lasting impacts. Of these four challenges, we think nonprofits are well placed to solve 1) and 3), given that these are mainly coordination and informational challenges that do not involve compromising on different national priorities. We also think nonprofits can sometimes shift perspectives on 4) by using strategic communications to make lasting impacts more tangible to policymakers and voters. However, we think 2) is not easily solved by nonprofits and, in fact, has been the main bottleneck in some of the advocacy efforts we have observed. Therefore, our conclusion is that nonprofit engagement can lead to more GPP with governments a) in regions where the green premium is low, or b) that are willing to trade off some economic gains to meet climate targets.
Existing initiatives include the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative’s Green Procurement Pledge and EU’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.50 Our impression is that there is greater traction for GPP in high-income countries, as low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may understandably be less inclined to allocate additional funding to lower-carbon industry products. Public procurement accounts for only around 12% of GDP in OECD countries but up to 30% in lower-income countries.51 LMICs may be more incentivized to commit to GPP to meet compliance with trade policies, such as the EU’s CBAM.
Funding need: High. We have observed some coordinated initiatives already working on green public procurement, in partnership with the U.N. Industrial Development Organization, but we think substantial philanthropic funding can be further used to widen country coverage and raise the ambition of existing pledges.52
Supporting governments to establish regulatory frameworks Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟢🟢🟢 HighScale: High. Regulatory frameworks such as carbon pricing shape the economics of the entire steel market rather than individual plants. Carbon pricing has been cited as the most effective individual policy to reduce emissions in developed economies and has strong co-benefits for other policies (e.g., raising revenues for innovation funding).53 Modeling by Bachorz et al. finds that without rising carbon prices, primary steel remains almost entirely coal-based through 2070.54 While innovation and procurement policies support the development of new green pathways, regulations also have the added value of incentivizing the shutdown of heavy-emitting stranded assets.
Feasibility: Medium. The establishment of emissions trading systems (ETS) covering steel in countries like the EU, China, Korea, and India demonstrates momentum behind regulations, and we observe ongoing opportunities to influence policy windows, such as the EU's 2026 ETS review.55 We think that regulatory policy is more difficult to influence and more likely to face political opposition than procurement and innovation policy, since it penalizes large, legacy manufacturers for their emissions and can be seen as distorting markets. For example, ahead of the EU's July 2026 ETS review, industry voices were split on support for and against strengthening regulations, though the largest steel companies have advocated delaying strengthening measures.56
Although we observe that nonprofits are strongly engaged with governments, we have low certainty that such engagement is a primary influencer of policy adoption. Our reasoning is that attribution and counterfactuals are typically opaque and policymakers must trade off among a wide range of stakeholder priorities. Our experience from tracking advocacy campaigns and speaking to policy and nonprofit stakeholders is that many of these engagements do not lead to substantial change.
Still, we have seen strong evidence from some nonprofits that demonstrates that they can counterfactually affect policy outcomes. Our observation is that the most successful nonprofits find ways to provide clear value to policymakers by helping them achieve their stated aims, such as by 1) educating policymakers about and providing design support for cost-effective policies that allow them to meet their climate and/or other goals, 2) providing technical knowledge of decarbonization pathways, 3) coordinating and collecting support for regulations from climate-forward businesses and financial institutions, and 4) gathering evidence and building narratives to support implementation of cost-effective policies.
Funding need: High. Our impression, based on conversations with funders and nonprofits in the space, is that industrial climate regulation attracts some philanthropic attention, but that the field could absorb substantially more funding, especially outside of Europe, where we see the most activity.
Supporting green trade policy Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟡🟡⚪️ MediumScale: High. Local regulations may cause carbon leakage, whereby stricter regulations in one area, without protections against high-carbon-intensity imports, encourage industry to relocate to another location and continue emitting. Regulations such as the EU’s CBAM are intended to prevent such leakage. They can also have considerable global spillover effects by extending emissions-based incentives to any global supplier trading into the EU. A systematic review found CBAM-linked policy responses in dozens of countries, including new or reformed carbon pricing in EU candidate states and consideration in India, Indonesia, and others.57 The CBAM has also influenced China to bring steel into its national ETS.58
Because iron ore production is concentrated in a handful of countries, strategic bilateral trade partnerships could also have an outsized effect. For example, one estimate predicted that Australian green iron exports could contribute to 4.4% of global mitigation in 2050.59
Feasibility: Medium. Because of the geographic heterogeneity of the steel value chain, many countries are forced to coordinate internationally, supporting the salience of trade policy. It has also recently risen in prominence as a means to protect domestic manufacturing. Trade policies have also drawn opposition from foreign countries on the grounds that it is protectionist and is in opposition to free trade agreements.60 Another challenge is the variation of standards across geographies. For example, India's 'greenest' rating (<1.6 tCO2e per tonne finished steel) sits roughly four times above Europe's near-zero threshold (~0.4 tCO2e per tonne crude steel).61 Our impression is that individual countries do not always have the necessary resources or incentives to harmonize international interoperability of green steel standards, leaving a key supporting role for nonprofits.
We therefore think nonprofits’ most useful roles in facilitating green trade policy are to support robust implementation and coordination, harmonize standards, defend against dilution, and help lower-income exporters respond constructively rather than getting penalized.
Funding need: Medium. In part due to CBAM's influence, trade policy is an area of interest for several nonprofits in the field. Our impression is that it attracts more attention, and therefore funding, than some other steel sub-strategies because there is strong alignment with national priorities for energy independence and industrial competitiveness. However, we think the overall scope of work is vast, and work on key trade relationships, such as those with major iron ore producers, could absorb more funding.
Facilitating corporate low-carbon procurement commitments Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟡🟡⚪️ MediumScale: High. Based on the current plant pipeline, green steel supply will likely exceed demand by 1.8-4.3x in 2030.62 Securing additional demand is needed to balance this figure and justify further investment in green steel. Corporate offtake underpins early plants. For example, Stegra, one of the eight commercial-scale green steel plants at FID, cites offtake agreements covering 60% of its production volume as one of the key reasons for the project reaching FID.63
Feasibility: Medium. In general, we believe corporations are aware of existing profit-making opportunities, and the economics of many heavy industry products can make it difficult for low-carbon switches to be profitable without transition support.64 SteelZero and the First Movers Coalition, which have over 40 and 25 green steel commitments respectively, demonstrate that some companies are willing to engage with nonprofit procurement initiatives.65
We have seen nonprofits play significant roles to support demand commitments by providing infrastructure to facilitate demand commitments, brokering deals between groups of buyers and early-mover plants, vetting and educating companies about low-carbon facilities, and directly engaging with corporate executives.66 We think these strategies are likely to be impactful because they aim to help companies achieve their stated aims at minimal cost, which is important given that the economics of most green steel produced today render it uncompetitive without transition support.67
We are less certain about the effectiveness of applying pressure on companies to implement demand commitments. We think consumer-facing campaigns are difficult in the steel sector, since products are largely upstream from direct consumer purchasing decisions. We think advocacy campaigns have some directional impact in raising the salience of decarbonization within companies and moving the Overton window, but see them as less likely to be among the most promising philanthropic opportunities. We will continue monitoring the progress of ongoing campaigns and update our views accordingly.
On the margin, we think this strategy can have the greatest impact by focusing on deep decarbonization options and leveraging buyer coalitions to facilitate first-of-a-kind plants.
Funding need: Medium. We have observed a handful of organizations already convening buyer coalitions. Our impression is that the bottleneck is not funder interest, but the number of companies willing to participate in ambitious procurement commitments.
Facilitating early-mover plant construction Scale: 🟢🟢🟢 High Feasibility: 🟡🟡⚪️ Medium Funding need: 🟡🟡⚪️ MediumScale: High. Early-mover commercial plants are the central bottleneck for green steel: only ~60,000 metric tons per year of green steel capacity is operational against ~1.9 billion metric tons per year of global production, and the announced pipeline would meet only ~2% of demand.68 Each successful demonstration derisks the pathway for followers and drives learning-by-doing cost declines.
Feasibility: Medium. Nonprofits can support various pathways to accelerate final investment decision, for example, stimulating demand through corporate and/or public offtake commitments, securing permits and access to critical infrastructure, and sharing knowledge with project developers.69
We think nonprofits are well placed to execute this work because it involves coordinating different stakeholders who may not have the resources or incentives to lead this work themselves, and reported wins from nonprofits validate plausible influence to raise the likelihood of early-mover success.70 However, building early-mover plants is inherently difficult from both engineering and financial perspectives due to their operational complexity, high capital costs, and unproven nature.
Funding need: Medium. The financing gap for first-of-a-kind plants is large, as evidenced by the weak pipeline of commercial-scale plants. We think this sub-strategy has a lower funding need than others, since early-mover plants are also supported by other sub-strategies, such as innovation funding and green procurement.
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42 Figure 4 Rhodium Group, 2026 ; Figure: Cost premiums for initial projects are significant, but the impact on end products is more manageable IEA, 2026
43 Innovation funds:"€40 billion From 2020 - 2030" European Commission (accessed August 2026); "The Australian Government has allocated significant funding for green metals projects, including a A$1 billion Green Iron Investment Fund." Australian Trade and Investment Commission, 2026 ; “Japan's New Energy and Industrial technology Development Organisation set up the Green Innovation Fund, worth up to 2 trillion yen ($19.2 billion)” IEA, 2025 "Govt plans ₹5,000 cr mission to boost green steel, cut industry emissions" Business Standard, 2026
44 "The Innovation Fund, which was launched in 2020, is believed to be one of the world’s largest programmes for scaling-up of innovative net zero technologies, with an estimated budget of €40 billion up to 2030. However, as of June 2025, actual payments to projects were only €332 million and overall the fund’s project portfolio achieved less than 5% of the emissions reductions that were anticipated." Enlit, 2026
45 "A total of 356 awards across six DOE offices have been terminated, amounting to $12.5 billion in federal funding." NRDC, 2026
46 LeadIT Tracker (accessed August 2026); "The startup’s critical metals business missed a key milestone due to an incident at its Brazil plant, leading it to lose financing and lay off 71 U.S. employees." Canary Media, 2026
47 “If all projects come to fruition, clean steel capacity will exceed demand by a factor of 1.8-4.3x by 2030” Rhodium Group, 2026
48 "Public procurement is estimated to be responsible for 25% of global construction revenue." United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), 2023
49 "Our analysis now shows that around 70 more projects are 'poised' to secure funding and unlock the benefits that investment will bring. These projects use better-known technologies and have already secured a portion of their offtake and/or part of their financing. The Final Investment Decision now often depends on securing additional volumes of offtake, which in turn requires effective and predictable implementation of announced policies incentivising demand, and on securing permits and access to critical infrastructure. If realised, that would represent around $140 billion of investment and the biggest step change in clean industry to date, potentially matching half of the last decade's progress in a fraction of the time." MPP, 2025
50 Section: Community Clean Energy Ministerial, n.d . [accessed August 2026]; “The Commission will also review the public procurement framework in 2026 to introduce sustainability, resilience and European preference criteria in public procurement for strategic sectors.” European Commission, n.d. [accessed August 2026]
51 “Public procurement wields enormous purchasing power, accounting for an average of 12 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in OECD countries, and up to 30 percent of GDP in many developing countries.” UNEP n.d.
52 UNIDO, 2025 ; UNIDO, 2021
53 “In the industry sector, pricing plays a prominent role. It is most effective individually in developed economies (43%) and shows the most synergy with other policies in developing economies (50%). However, subsidies can be effective complements in both contexts.” Stechemesser et al., 2024
54 "without rising carbon prices or similar policies, primary steel continues to rely on BF-BOF, accounting for over 1,000 Mt of steel in 2070." Bachorz et al., 2026
55 International Carbon Action Partnership maintains a list of global ETSs .
56 Open letter against strengthening the ETS by ArcelorMittal, Thyssenkrupp etc.; Counter letter defending the ETS from Stegra, SSAB etc.
57 A systematic review found CBAM-linked policy responses across dozens of countries: "policy adoption (24 countries), followed by opposition (22 countries) and cooperation (15 countries)." Otto, 2025
58 “China will expand its national carbon trading market to include the steel, aluminum, and cement industries at the end of the year [...] Chinese authorities hope lower emissions will help soften the blow from a new carbon tariff, known as CBAM, to be imposed by the European Union from 2026” Bloomberg, 2024
59 Table ES.3: The Australian superpower trade can contribute significantly to global climate mitigation Superpower Institute, 2024
60 “Countries including China, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa have brought formal objections to discuss CBAM at the World Trade Organization, where countries including India and Brazil have also raised complaints.” “Many developing countries regard the CBAM as a protectionist policy that renders free trade agreements meaningless” Eco-Business, 2026
61 "India's Green Steel Taxonomy defines five-star (its highest) green steel as emission intensity below 1.6 tCO2e per tonne of finished steel; anything above 2.2 tCO2e/tfs gets no green rating at all." Government of India (accessed August 2026); "Europe's near-zero benchmark is far stricter: ResponsibleSteel's Progress Level 4 sets near-zero steel at or below 0.4 tCO2e per tonne of crude steel at 0% scrap." Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 2025
62 “If all projects come to fruition, clean steel capacity will exceed demand by a factor of 1.8-4.3x by 2030” Rhodium Group, 2026
63 "The Final Investment Decision now often depends on securing additional volumes of offtake [...] ‘We found offtakers for 60% of our volume through 20 contracts.’ -Stegra" MPP, 2025 ; Figure: 161 landmark commercial-scale, deep-decarbonisation projects are now financed or built worldwide, with a further 800+ in development. MPP, 2026
64 Difficulty of low-carbon switches: “Steel, cement, and chemicals are the top three emitting industries and are among the most difficult to decarbonize, owing to…economic factors including low profit margins, capital intensity, long asset life, and trade exposure.” Brookings Institute, 2021
65 “Over 40 businesses globally” Steelzero, n.d. [accessed August 2026]; Section: steel First Movers Coalition, n.d. [accessed August 2026]
66 For example, the Sustainable Steel Buyers Platform and the Center for Green Market Activation broker offtake agreements for vetted plants and allows companies to make verified emission accounting claims.
67 "Either way, significant policy support is fundamental to de-risking the investments in the development, commercialization and deployment of these innovations, which are estimated to cost $25 to $60 USD per tonne CO2 for steel and $110 to $130 USD per tonne CO2 for cement." Clean Energy Ministerial, 2021
68 "At present, only around 270,000 tonnes per year of green iron capacity and 60,000 tonnes per year of green steel capacity are operational, meaning only a small share of announced projects has reached production.” SEI, 2026 ; Figure: pipeline capacity vs existing grey market vs passed FID, per sector MPP, 2026
69 "Across sectors, progress depends on stimulating demand through effective and predictable implementation of announced policies and on securing permits and access to critical infrastructure, such as grid connections" MPP, 2025
70 Reported wins from nonprofits: Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance, 2026 ; MPP, 2025
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