Realising WA's green iron potential
06.01.2025 - 12:43
Mandala has collaborated with the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Western Australia to launch a landmark report highlighting the immense decarbonisation and economic benefits of green iron produced in WA. Large-scale production of green iron in WA could reduce global emissions by 1.2 per cent by 2050 – effectively offsetting nearly every tonne of CO2 currently produced in Australia – while generating $74 billion in economic value and supporting 19,600 direct jobs. Green iron represents an opportunity for Western Australia to play a leading role decarbonising the emissions-intensive steelmaking process.
Steelmaking is highly carbon-intensive, accounting for 6% to 9% of global emissions each year. Ironmaking generates up to 90% of steel emissions under the most common process.
Current decarbonisation options for ironmaking use higher-grade iron ore feedstocks, including magnetite, or increasing production via the Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) pathway. While Direct Reduced Iron offers substantial emissions reduction potential, less than 5% of global iron ore meets the required purity level.
Transformational reductions in ironmaking emissions will require the development and commercialisation of new processes capable of producing green iron using lower-grade ore feedstocks.
As the world's largest iron ore exporter, Western Australia’s (WA) iron ore industry is actively exploring pathways to support global decarbonisation of the steel industry and generate local economic value.
If these technologies are commercialised and supported with the right policy settings, WA could produce at least 4.5Mt of green iron by 2030, with industry feedback indicating this nearer term opportunity could be larger.
Over the longer term, WA could supply in excess of 14% of global green iron by 2050, leveraging established industrial capability and renewable energy generation potential.
This could reduce global emissions by 1.2% (456Mt of CO2), nearly equivalent to Australia's current domestic emissions (465Mt of CO2), generate $74 billion in economic value in addition to iron ore exports, and support 19,600 additional ongoing direct jobs by 2050 (excluding construction jobs).
However, WA’s future position as a globally competitive green iron producer is not guaranteed.
Other regions are moving quickly to develop green iron capabilities and lower the cost of low emissions energy generation – the main cost factor in green iron production.
Read the report in full here.
Read our latest posts
Accelerating Housing Delivery Through Risk Capital Approaches
Mandala’s latest research, prepared with CBRE, aims to understand the benefits of shifting public-sector subsidies from grant dependence to risk capital co-investment. Risk capital is the deployment of sub-market loans to housing developments and has been applied in Greater Manchester to halve the effective public cost of subsidisation. As England grapples with a viability crisis, risk capital can provide an effective policy solution. This report models the deployment of £8.5bn from the National Housing Bank as risk capital across England. The report finds that deploying this capital within existing fiscal rules could unlock 94,000–104,000 additional homes by 2031, depending on the deployment strategy. This could crowd in £22bn in private investment, generate £5.6–£5.8bn in cumulative GDP growth, and support 71,000–73,000 jobs across England while recovering public capital with interest.
20 May, 2026
How Australia's largest industrial companies are tracking on emissions
Mandala's analysis examines how emissions from Australia's largest listed industrial companies have shifted between 2020 and 2025.
18 May, 2026
How deeper EV adoption can protect the UK against oil supply shocks
Mandala's research looks at how passenger electric vehicle uptake can help stretch the UK's liquid fuel supplies in times of supply shocks.
15 May, 2026
Decarbonising Australia’s road freight network
Mandala’s latest research, prepared for Energy Futures Foundation, sets out a policy roadmap for decarbonising Australia’s road freight network which could help to drive economic, environmental and social benefits. Emissions in the transport sector grew 0.3 Mt CO2-e in 2025. Emissions in all other sectors fell. Australia has a critical window to decarbonise its road freight network, but the current policy settings have Australia on the wrong track. A policy suite that targets cost, infrastructure and regulatory barriers could add an additional 1.5 million battery electric trucks to the road by 2050 and be cost neutral for the budget. Setting up the right policies now could deliver $138 billion in economic growth over the next 25 years, create 900 thousand jobs by 2050 and reduce emissions by 181 Mt CO2-e – equivalent to 41% of Australia’s 2025 annual emissions. These policies would also save 3,300 lives and reduce externality costs associated with heavy vehicles by $18.5 billion by 2050.
27 Mar, 2026