InfraBuild’s Journey to Making Sustainable Steel

By David Bell, Construction Market Manager, Infrabuild Steel

Infrabuild continues to strive for sustainability solutions that can offer better outcomes for its infrastructure and construction partners.

Steel has long played a part in the Circular Economy and is the most recycled material on the planet by weight. But did you know that Australia currently captures well in excess of 90 per cent of its potential scrap steel pool, reusing or recycling this into new steel products with no loss of quality?

As Australia’s largest integrated manufacturer and supplier of steel long products and solutions – including hot rolled structural steel, reinforcing bar and mesh, merchant bar, pipe and RHS, rod and wire and building products – InfraBuild is ideally placed to drive positive change in how our major road, rail, tunnel and other nation-building infrastructure projects are conceived of and constructed.

A commitment to sustainability is one of InfraBuild’s core values and is manifested in several initiatives the company has taken in recent years. For example, InfraBuild has been working on how its products rate against the Material Circularity Indicator tool and how they can continue to be improved upon – it’s an exciting way of looking at the flow of material through the product life cycle.

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Most recently, InfraBuild has launched Viribar™, a patented high-strength steel ligature that reduces both the mass and embodied energy of steel ligatures by 33 per cent, while still providing the same strength capacity of standard-grade ligatures. This exciting new product will cost the same as a standard-grade ligature, but is lighter, easier to install and fully weldable. This makes it ideal as both a loose ligature that can be installed on site or as part of a prefabricated modular assembly that can be manufactured offsite.

Compared to standard-grade steel ligatures, the Viribar™ high-strength steel ligature doesn’t just offer a superior environmental outcome, it is actually easier to install and delivers a more economical outcome to users.

Driving Sustainability Outcomes

InfraBuild has affirmed its commitment to ensuring it is a long-term responsible and sustainable supplier to Australia’s infrastructure projects through other important initiatives.

InfraBuild is proud to have been an early adopter of ISCA’s ISupply Programme by being one of the very first companies to be recognised in the ISupply Directory when it was launched in 2018.

The company also supplies EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) for its range of structural and reinforcing steel products. InfraBuild’s five EPDs are independently verified and are recognised by ISCA’s IS rating scheme, the GBCA Green Star rating scheme and the Australasian EPD Programme.

In mid-2019, InfraBuild in conjunction with thinkstep undertook a hotspot analysis of the environmental indicators across all of its EPDs to understand how improvements in the company’s manufacturing processes and supply chain had altered the various indicators in the EPDs. There have been some exciting outcomes from this work, which InfraBuild’s Construction Market Manager, David Bell, looks forward to revealing during his presentation at the #ISCACONNECT ‘Innovations and Impacts’ Workshop.

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To find out more about InfraBuild’s sustainability initiatives, including the launch of its new patented high-strength steel and the results of its work with thinkstep, be sure to attend David Bell’s presentation, ‘InfraBuild’s Journey to Making Sustainable Steel’, at the ‘Innovation and Impacts’ Workshop on Day 2 (16 October) of the #ISCACONNECT conference. 

Limited tickets available, right here!