Fifteen European businesses, including Heidelberg Materials, Holcim and Stegra, have written to EU lawmakers seeking tougher Industrial Accelerator Act demand rules to help a €85 billion pipeline of clean projects reach final investment decisions.
Fifteen European businesses and organisations, including steelmakers, cement producers and clean fuel developers, wrote to European Union co-legislators on 14 September calling for a more ambitious Industrial Accelerator Act, in an open letter published by the Mission Possible Partnership. The signatories argue that the Act’s demand-side measures fall short of what is needed to support more than 100 clean industrial projects, worth an estimated €85 billion, that are already waiting on market certainty to reach final investment decision.
The letter was signed by Heidelberg Materials, Holcim, SSAB, Tata Steel Nederland, Stegra, Norsk Hydro, Hydnum Steel, Titan Group, FertigHy, Polestar and Ramboll, and convened by the Mission Possible Partnership alongside think tank E3G, the Steel Zero Climate Group and the Demand Creation Coalition. The Mission Possible Partnership is a coalition backed by RMI and the World Economic Forum that works with heavy industry and transport companies to cut emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. The letter sets out six recommendations for EU co-legislators as they finalise the Industrial Accelerator Act.
The signatories want a graduated system of performance classes for near-zero-emissions products, rather than a single low-carbon definition, with extra recognition for the cleanest projects through multipliers and sub-targets. They are also asking for emissions-based commodity definitions to be set by early 2027 for steel, and as soon as possible for cement, concrete and aluminium, so that industry has enough lead time to plan investment.
On demand, the letter calls for low-carbon procurement requirements to rise to at least 50% for aluminium and steel and 25% for concrete and mortar by 2029, with visibility on requirements extending beyond 2030 to support new investment decisions. The current thresholds under the draft Industrial Accelerator Act stand at 25% for steel and aluminium and 5% for concrete, according to the letter.
The businesses also want clearer “Made in Europe” rules that balance protection for European production capacity with continued access to competitive low-carbon imports, using sector-specific tests such as melted-and-poured standards for steel and smelt-and-cast requirements for aluminium. They are asking the Commission to extend demand-side measures to chemicals and fertilisers, with a roadmap due within twelve months of the Act entering into force, and to ensure the EU’s Public Procurement Act explicitly backs sustainability and low-carbon requirements in public tenders.
Lead-market rules of this kind work by pushing a slice of demand towards cleaner material, giving producers a floor of buyers to underwrite investment. The signatories’ case is that a threshold set too low leaves new plants competing on price alone against conventional output, which is where most low-carbon projects stall. Several signatories are building plants that depend on exactly that kind of demand, including Stegra in Sweden and Hydnum Steel in Spain.
The letter warns that “Europe’s window to lead in a clean industrial future is closing fast,” pointing to figures showing only two of nineteen clean industrial plants that reached financial close globally in 2025 were located in the EU, compared with twelve in China.
The Industrial Accelerator Act is one of several measures the European Commission is using to try to keep energy-intensive industry investment in Europe as it tightens carbon pricing under the EU Emissions Trading System and phases in the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on imported steel, aluminium, cement and fertiliser. Investors in low-carbon steel and cement projects have repeatedly cited uncertain demand, rather than the underlying technology, as the main obstacle to reaching final investment decision. The letter puts a number on that gap, and its signatories are now pressing co-legislators to close it before the Act is finalised.
