The clean transition is creating a paradox. We need more metals to build renewable energy, electrification, hydrogen, and other low-carbon technologies, while the resources, energy and carbon available to produce them are constrained.
For decades, industrial progress has largely meant producing more. The next phase will require us to do something harder: create more value from every ton of material, every unit of energy and every unit of carbon.
The demand for critical materials continues to grow, with the IEA expecting demand to nearly double by 2040.
This is a global imperative. Around the world, governments and industries are reassessing the resilience of supply chains, access to critical raw materials and the technologies needed to remain competitive in a more uncertain global economy. For materials like chromium, which is needed in high-tech applications in industries like aerospace and defense, the supply chains are incredibly limited – making the security of a reliable supply even more pressing.
This is where technology can change the equation. If we want a competitive, low-emission industrial future, we cannot rely only on securing more raw materials or improving existing processes. We need to rethink how metals are made, used, and valued.
Strategic autonomy requires more than resources
Access to critical raw materials has become an increasingly important question for economies around the world. Shifting geopolitical sands; increasingly concentrated supply chains; fast-growing demand for the materials needed for electrification and clean energy; these are together exposing vulnerabilities that were less visible in a more predictable global trading environment.
Having resources closer to home can strengthen resilience. Outokumpu's Kemi mine in Finland, for example, is the only chrome mine in the European Union, providing a reliable Western source of a material essential to stainless steel production.
But resources alone do not create strategic autonomy.
The ability to process those resources competitively, sustainably, and at scale is equally important. So is the ability to develop technologies that reduce dependence on carbon-intensive production methods and make better and more sustainable use of the resources available.
This applies to every industrial economy. Whether the goal is strengthening manufacturing in Europe, securing supply chains in North America or building new clean industries in Asia and elsewhere, access to materials is only one part of the equation - the other is technological innovation.
Breaking the link between ore quality and metals quality
When we look at how metals are produced today, we see that many still rely on chemistry and methods that have remained largely unchanged for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Despite the metals industry improving efficiency and reducing emissions for decades, traditional metal production still relies on carbon-intensive processes. In conventional smelting, carbon-based reductants play a central role and generate CO₂ as part of the process.
We asked a simple question: what if we could break the link between metal production and carbon emissions?
That question has led us to develop a proprietary low-CO₂ metal extraction technology. Instead of relying on pyrometallurgical processes, the process uses a different approach to extract metals and produces [GT7.1]high quality critical metals with much lower carbon emissions than with the traditional process technology.
This process opens the possibility of producing metals differently: changing the resources we use, the products we can create, and the value we can generate from them in a more sustainable way.
This is what makes industrial innovation so important. Step-Change Technologies and decarbonization do not have to mean accepting higher costs or lower performance. The right technologies can create entirely new opportunities.
Our technology is now moving from research towards an industrial scale. Construction of the pilot plant in New Hampshire, U.S., is progressing as planned, and the scale-up of the proprietary technology to produce low-CO₂-enriched ferrochrome and chromium metal is advancing. From 2027 to 2030, the focus is expected to shift toward industrialization.
The progression from grams to kilograms – and eventually, to tons – will demonstrate what it takes to turn a fundamentally different approach to metallurgy into an industrial opportunity.
The opportunity is bigger than decarbonization
The companies and countries that can develop new ways of producing critical materials will be better positioned to strengthen their industrial resilience. They can reduce exposure to carbon-intensive supply chains, unlock greater value from scarce resources, and create new markets for materials with higher performance and lower environmental impact.
This is why industrial decarbonization should not be viewed only as an emissions challenge – instead, as an innovation challenge, with improved resource access and competitiveness as the prize.
Strategic autonomy will not come simply from having access to more raw materials. It will come from having the technology and industrial capability to use those materials more efficiently, more circularly, and with less carbon.
We must be realistic about the scale of the transformation; new industrial technologies take time to develop, scale and prove commercially. They require investment, skilled people, infrastructure, and customers willing to adopt new solutions.
But that is precisely why Outokumpu is pioneering this technology and why we keep pushing boundaries now.