Connecting environmental systems analysis to manufacturing technology: A catalogue of the world's steel and aluminium components

In pursuit of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the environmental systems community has developed material flow analyses to describe the transformation of resources into goods, while the manufacturing technology community has developed innovations that can affect the production of individual components. However, these two communities have remained disconnected, because neither is able to relate their insights to their point of common interest: the global production of components. For the first time, this paper connects global analyses of the use of steel and aluminium to the production of components, classified by the metal forming processes which shape them. The results demonstrate the proportions of steel and aluminium used in ten distinct component groups, at global level, and for the major product groups which drive demand for these two metals. This helps both to prioritise requirements for innovation in design and manufacturing and to evaluate of the emissions potential of such innovations.