FERALPI SIDERURGICA SPA

Their core work

Feralpi Siderurgica is one of Italy's leading steel producers, operating electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking plants in Brescia — Italy's industrial steel heartland. The company produces long steel products (primarily reinforcing bar) and brings industrial-scale expertise in energy-intensive manufacturing processes, waste stream management, and resource efficiency to European research consortia. In H2020, Feralpi participates as an industrial demonstrator and end-user, providing real production environments where industrial symbiosis concepts — exchanging waste heat, CO2 streams, and wastewater between co-located industries — can be tested and validated at scale. Their value to research consortia is access to a live steelworks as a testbed, combined with operational knowledge of where resource losses actually occur in heavy industry.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Feralpi's H2020 trajectory moves from broad industrial symbiosis principles toward specific resource stream applications. Their first project, FISSAC (2015–2020), addressed industrial symbiosis conceptually across extended supply chains in resource-intensive industries — the focus was on the framework and methodology for cross-industry collaboration. By CORALIS (2020–2025), the focus sharpened considerably: waste heat recovery, CO2 utilization, and wastewater are now named outputs, indicating a shift from proving that symbiosis works to demonstrating exactly which industrial streams can be exchanged and monetized. The trend is toward technical specificity — Feralpi appears to be deepening its role from a generic industrial testbed into a site with identified, quantified resource streams ready for symbiotic exchange.

Feralpi is moving toward operationalizing specific industrial waste streams as tradeable resources, making them an increasingly concrete partner for projects targeting decarbonization and resource efficiency in heavy industry.

How they like to work

Feralpi participates exclusively as a consortium partner — never as coordinator — which is consistent with a large industrial company that contributes production infrastructure and operational data rather than project management capacity. With 56 unique partners across 2 projects, they operate within large, diverse consortia (averaging 28 partners per project), typical of Innovation Actions that need multiple industrial demonstrators and research partners simultaneously. This profile suggests Feralpi is a reliable industrial anchor: they open their facilities and processes to the consortium but rely on research partners to drive methodology and reporting.

Feralpi has built connections with 56 unique partners across 11 countries through just two projects, reflecting the large, international consortia typical of EU Innovation Actions in industrial sustainability. Their network spans Western and Southern Europe, consistent with the geography of heavy industry and circular economy policy interest.

What sets them apart

Feralpi is one of very few steelmakers in EU research consortia that functions as a live industrial demonstrator for circular economy and industrial symbiosis — not a university simulating a factory, but an actual operating steelworks. Their Brescia location places them within one of Europe's densest industrial clusters, where symbiosis between co-located manufacturers is physically feasible rather than theoretical. For any consortium needing a credible heavy-industry end-user to validate decarbonization or resource efficiency technologies at scale, Feralpi offers rare access to real process conditions.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CORALIS
  Feralpi's largest funded project (€732,594) and the one that most concretely defines their technical contribution — CO2 utilization, waste heat recovery, and wastewater as specific output streams within a long-term industrial symbiosis network.
• FISSAC
  Their entry into EU research collaboration, establishing Feralpi's position as an industrial testbed for symbiosis across resource-intensive industries — the foundation for all subsequent H2020 work.