Recorded live at the Pitch Perfect Bioeconomy event in Brussels, this episode features Kristof Verbeeck, Business Development at ArcelorMittal Belgium, on what it actually means for heavy industry to bet on bio-manufacturing.

ArcelorMittal Ghent is a 5-million-ton steel plant and the largest industrial CO₂ emitter in Belgium. Eight years ago, they decided to do something radical: build Europe’s first large-scale gas fermentation plant inside a steel mill, turning waste carbon monoxide and hydrogen into ethanol. Meet Steelanol.

On paper, it made perfect sense:

• Higher-value product instead of flaring gases
• Avoided CO₂ emissions under the EU ETS system
• A potential cornerstone in the company’s decarbonization roadmap

In reality? Scaling first-of-a-kind industrial biotech inside heavy industry is complex, technically and politically.

We talk about:

• Why the EU ETS was central to the business case
• How changing regulation reshaped market access
• The challenge of certification under the Renewable Energy Directive
• What it takes to commission 550m³ fermenters at industrial scale
• Why innovation speed and regulatory speed are often misaligned

The plant is built. It runs. Ethanol has been produced. But technical scale-up and regulatory frameworks still need to align for the model to fully deliver.

Kristof shares candid insights into corporate risk-taking, regulatory uncertainty, and what startups should know before approaching heavy industry: validate your technology, understand corporate roadmaps, and don’t oversell.

This episode is a real-world look at what happens when decarbonization moves from strategy slides into steel and concrete.

This miniseries is powered by Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant and Pitch Perfect Bioeconomy.