Alphabet Inc.’s Google (GOOGL) has agreed to purchase environmental attribute certificates from a Swedish steelmaker building what is billed as the world’s first large-scale plant to produce near-zero-emissions steel using green hydrogen, a move aimed at shrinking the carbon footprint of its data center construction.
The agreement with Stegra covers up to 91,000 metric tons of steel from the first year of production at the company’s facility in Boden, Sweden. The plant will use renewable electricity to generate hydrogen, which reacts with iron ore to produce iron — replacing the coal used in traditional blast furnaces and cutting emissions by as much as 95%, according to Stegra.
“We’re partnering with Stegra to help bring the world’s first large-scale, green hydrogen-based, near-zero emissions steel plant online,” Google said in a statement. The steel is designed to meet the International Energy Agency’s definition for near-zero emissions steel production, which the company called “an important step toward addressing the impact of the hard-to-decarbonize steel industry.”
The certificates Google is buying do not represent physical steel deliveries. Instead, they allow the company to apply the “green” label to conventional steel it uses at construction sites elsewhere, a mechanism that Stegra describes as essential for financing early-stage clean technology when direct procurement is impractical due to geographic or supply chain separation.
“There are some players globally that can help move markets towards decarbonized products in an impactful way,” said Stegra CEO Henrik Henriksson. He added that Google is “naturally one such player” and expressed gratitude for the company’s support during the plant’s initial operating years.
How the certificate model works
A registry system is designed to prevent double-counting of the green label. If Google buys certificates covering 50,000 metric tons of steel, it can market 50,000 metric tons of conventional steel it consumes as green. Stegra, in turn, must sell the corresponding 50,000 metric tons of physically green steel as conventional product — meaning downstream buyers such as Thyssenkrupp would pay a lower price but could not claim environmental attributes.
The arrangement channels capital directly to the production facility, helping Stegra recover its investment in green technology more quickly. For novel industrial processes, the biggest hurdle is often financing rather than technical feasibility, and long-term offtake commitments or certificate purchases provide certainty before production even begins.
Google said the initiative could reduce embodied carbon emissions from data center infrastructure by up to 40%. In 2025, the company integrated low-carbon concrete, steel, or a combination of both in more than 20 construction projects.
“By supporting innovative technologies and partnering with coalitions like the Sustainable Steel Buyers Platform, we hope to bring more green building materials to market and increasingly incorporate them into our own operations,” the company added.
Stegra cautioned that near-zero emission steel will initially be available in limited volumes and few locations. The certificate mechanism allows committed buyers to address steel-related emissions even when direct procurement of the physical product is constrained.
The partnership signals that the green label carries economic value, potentially encouraging other technology and industrial companies to pursue similar arrangements as pressure mounts to decarbonize construction supply chains.
