ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

Our Commitment to the Environment

At Olympic Steel, we respect the environment and take very seriously our role as stewards of the planet’s resources. We are committed to following practices that will have a positive impact on the communities in which we operate – for the benefit of current and future generations of employees, customers, industry partners and shareholders.

While our environmental impact is low, we are still committed to holding ourselves accountable to further reduce our GHG emissions.  This is evidenced by our environmental lead, who reports directly to our CEO.  We also hired a metals industry-specific consulting firm to provide us with our first GHG emissions calculation, which will serve as our baseline. This consultant not only helps us measure our emissions, but also helps us monitor and effectively implement processes to comply with ever-changing legislation. The results of the consultant’s work can be found here. 

Learn more about the impact of our role in the manufacturing supply chain below.

Our Environmental Policy

Olympic Steel’s Environmental Policy outlines our commitment to protecting the environment, complying with all applicable environmental regulations, and using resources responsibly. The full policy is available here.

Renewable Energy:  In 2022, more than 17% of our electricity was supplied from renewable content, including hydro and wind power. 85% of the energy used in our Bettendorf and Des Moines, Iowa facilities are generated from wind power. In addition, while 100% of Olympic Steel’s total consumed energy comes from the grid, one of our locations (the steel service center facility in Bedford Heights, Ohio) operates a wind tower that returns renewable energy to the local electrical grid. Many of our facilities have also implemented efficient HVAC/air systems to reduce energy use for heating and cooling. We continue to evaluate energy options at all of our locations to source our electrical requirements using suppliers that offer renewable content.

Natural Gas: More than 95% of Olympic Steel facilities use natural gas for heating needs. In 2022, Olympic facilities used approximately 1.3 million thermal units of natural gas. We continue exploring opportunities to reduce consumption, including upgrading to high-efficiency generators where possible and using fans and auto-closing garage doors in our production spaces to better circulate and conserve heating and cooling.

Water Usage: Olympic Steel recognizes that water is a shared and finite resource. Thus, we are committed to preserving this natural resource. None of the Olympic Steel facilities are located in high water stress areas. On a consolidated basis, Olympic Steel used approximately 6.2 million gallons of water in 2022 – down from approximately 7.5 million gallons in 2021. To help mitigate this usage,

we have installed water-saving equipment in any newly remodeled facilities, including using low-flow toilets and motion-detecting sinks.

To further reduce our water usage, we have significantly decreased our use of disposable water bottles by installing water filtration systems and providing reusable water bottles for employees.

Forestry: Across our operations, we seek a reduction of deforestation, as we see it being a significant factor of climate change. While many of our products ship to our customers on wooden pallets, we have taken measures to reduce our reliance on use of wood products. We have instituted pallet return programs for customers to maximize the life of a wooden pallet. And, although we incur more upfront costs, we utilize reusable, non-wooden materials to ship products to our customers, where possible. This includes using our own fabricated steel racking. Our goal is to consistently enhance our efforts and show year-over-year progress, including reductions in usage. We also continue to educate our employees on ways to reduce paper use and have paper recycling programs in place in the majority of Olympic Steel facilities. We see these efforts as essential to reducing the demand for lumber, which will ultimately lead to a reduction in deforestation.