SSAB, Outokumpu and Alfa Laval announce new collaboration to reduce emissions at Laakso Joint Hospital in Helsinki

The City of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) will reform the Laakso Hospital area in Finland by 2030, and the construction project sought for energy-efficient and low-emission heat transfer solution for its new cooling system. The new equipment provided by Alfa Laval incorporates both SSAB Zero™ steel and Outokumpu Circle Green® stainless steel to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions and highlights the impact of cross-industry collaboration.

Laakso Joint Hospital will become one of four major hospital areas in the Helsinki region. The project has set ambitious environmental targets for energy efficiency, embodied carbon emissions and lifecycle costs. The installation of five Alfa Laval Concept Zero™ TL10 gasketed plate heat exchangers at Laakso Joint Hospital during 2025 will enable operational savings and reduced emissions in the upstream value chain.

“This is one more great step towards a more sustainable future. We are proud to work with companies like Alfa Laval and Outokumpu, since our goal is to build a fossil-free value chain together with our partners and customers. SSAB Zero™ is made using recycled steel. By using fossil-free energy during production, the fossil carbon emissions are virtually zero,” says Tony Harris, Head of SSAB Europe.

The heat exchangers combine SSAB Zero™ steel in the frames and pressure plates and Outokumpu’s Circle Green® stainless steel in the channel plates. The steel industry accounts for about 7-9% of global CO2 emissions, and with heat exchangers consisting mainly of steel, reducing the carbon footprint of these units is crucial.

“Our heat exchangers already contribute to reducing our customers' emissions during operation. By utilizing low-emission steel, we are also decreasing emissions in their upstream value chain,” says Julien Gennetier, Vice President Energy Division, Alfa Laval.” This collaboration serves as a model for how local initiatives can have a global impact, pushing the boundaries and scaling up the usage of low-emission materials.”

“Sustainability has played an important role in the Laakso Joint Hospital project with ambitious life cycle goals that have been considered at every phase of the project from design and engineering to construction and maintenance of the buildings. Sharing this deeper understanding with key suppliers and being able to install solutions that not only provide efficient cooling for the hospital but that also have a lower carbon footprint is a great contribution to our mission” says Property Manager Antti Hyökki at the Real Estate Limited Company Laakso Joint Hospital.

*) Based on global average emission factors for stainless steel and carbon steel according to Ecoinvent LCI database compared with the specific claims on Outokumpu Circle Green® and SSAB ZeroTM. According to ISO 14067, considering cradle-to-grave. 

About SSAB ZeroTM  steel

SSAB Zero™ is made using recycled steel as raw material, and by using fossil-free electricity, biocoal and biofuels as energy sources. The result is a steel made with virtually zero fossil carbon emissions in SSAB’s production process. In fact, the fossil carbon emissions in SSAB’s production of SSAB Zero™ are less than 0.05 kg CO2e/kg steel in Scope 1 and 2 of the GHG Protocol. This makes it the first commercially available steel of its kind, launched in March 2023. SSAB Zero™ has the same high quality, properties and performance in the end-product, as traditional steel. It has no added emissions, no mass balancing, no carbon emissions offsetting and is third party verified. Read more: https://www.ssab.com/fossil-free-steel/ssab-zero 

Read more about:

• Laakso Joint Hospital project https://laaksonyhteissairaala.fi/en/
• Alfa Laval Concept Zero™ https://www.alfalaval.com/concept-zero
• Outokumpu Circle Green® https://www.outokumpu.com/en/products/circle-green

For further information, please contact:
Atte Kaksonen, press officer at SSAB, [email protected], phone: +358 50 314 36 34