Green steel role in the circular economy – H2PlasmaRed co-organized clustering event debate in Helsinki

H2PlasmaRed had the great opportunity to co-organize the “To mine or not to mine critical metals in Europe?” clustering and debate event at Helsinki on 3rd of June 2026.

Our project was represented by project coordinator Henri Pauna (University of Oulu) together with dissemination and communication leader Ionuț-Alexandru Popa Popa (KU Leuven) and Akhilesh Kumar Swarnakar from the The European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP). The event gathered policymakers, industry, civil society, community representatives, and researchers to discuss global, European, and Nordic perspectives toward sustainable and just mining.

One of key takeaways for our project was the increasingly important role of circular economy, where mining wastes should be more efficiently reused and/or recycled. We will demonstrate treatment of industrial sidestreams with hydrogen plasma in this project, and our findings could support the circular economy also in the mining industry.

This event truly demonstrated how we all can learn from each other and pave a way for shared solutions by engaging industry and local communities in such events. While the topic of just mining is an extremely challenging topic, these kinds of events can help us to find common ground via constructive dialogue.