Fostering greater access to western Australia’s green steel opportunity model
At a glance
GHD created a web application to make western Australia’s green steel opportunity model more accessible to the public. This model came from the first free global study on the green steel value chain, enabling users from various industries to explore different green steel options and understand their costs and energy requirements for low-carbon pathways.
The challenge
The iron ore industry is western Australia’s largest and most important industry. The Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia (MRIWA) is a statutory body that fosters and supports investment in mineral research that benefits the state.
MRIWA released western Australia’s green steel opportunity model, a first-of-its-kind, exploring the viability of processing the state’s abundant iron ore to deliver across various stages of the green steel value chain. This was published as a 213-page PDF report on their website, utilising Excel for tracking website traffic data.
The PDF document’s limited features and visibility made it hard to share research findings widely as well as track and measure user engagement accurately. MRIWA also recognised that readers might struggle with the report’s dense text. This led them to invest in a digital solution to improve public access to the model.
Our response
MRIWA engaged GHD Advisory to undertake a green steel value chain assessment. From this emerged western Australia’s green steel opportunity model, which examined the key opportunities and barriers to decarbonising the steelmaking process and harnessing the state’s domestic mineral wealth.
GHD Digital developed a solution to convert the comprehensive report with the vast data points into digestible information through an intuitive, customised web-based application. We leveraged full-stack web development to build the application, developing its user-facing and server components.
The model presents pathways where fossil-fuel-based processes are replaced with renewable energy to produce green steel leveraging digital tools. This enables users to engage with an interactive model with adjustable parameters instead of static content on a PDF page. Users can access a dynamic dashboard, select among the default attributes or customise them according to different contexts and requirements, and compare scenarios.
The application serves as an emissions calculator at their fingertips. Each scenario illustrates the costs, energy requirements and emissions profiles. For example, a professional from the port industry may opt to modify the parameters to generate the closest estimate of the port’s emissions profile or identify the stage of the value chain with the highest emissions.
A valid email address allows 30 scenario comparisons for green mining, green iron and green steel. Users can also download the PDF version of these scenarios. Aside from the dashboard, features encourage users to share feedback and express further interest.
The impact
The custom web-based application enabled MRIWA to make its research findings accessible to local and global audiences, which elevated awareness and informed decision-making around carbon reduction initiatives related to the steel value chain.
The application is available for free to the public, empowering users to gain a snapshot and understanding of the viable opportunities to decarbonise the steelmaking process.
MRIWA now has the tools to assess user engagement with relevant data analytics. The webpage has gained significant traffic since it went live with more than 200 active users, 6,000 user sessions, about 200 downloads, and over 1,000 scenario comparisons. The application’s active users are from businesses, consulting firms and universities.
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