GFG Alliance is a sponsor of the World Climate Summit, part of the 2021 COP26 event in Glasgow, Scotland. 

GFG promotes and explains our approach to tackling climate change through our GREENSTEEL strategy. As part of that strategy, we have created the GREENSTEEL Academy to help us to build the skills we need to sustain our industry for the long term and meet our CN30 strategic objectives. 

The GREENSTEEL Academy’s mission is simple: to engage, inspire and develop the workforce of today and tomorrow through innovative development programmes, created by our own teams in collaboration with regional educational and technical establishments and with the support of regional authorities. 

The Academy aligns with the aims of the GFG Foundation, wanting to ensure that the younger generations are inspired by the importance of industry, the compelling case for change and the opportunities this provides for them to be part of the transformation. 

Investments for a green future 

Sanjeev Gupta, the Executive Chairman of GFG Alliance and LIBERTY Steel Group shares his views at the Ziarul Financiar l “Romanian industry: investments for a green future” conference.

The Academy is also here to develop our existing highly valued workforce – to support their careers as part of our Just Transition to new, greener technologies.   A global programme, named Discover GREENSTEEL, is being rolled out to all employees and will cover topics from the compelling case for change through to renewable energy sources, green technologies, and specific technical skills training.  Elements from these courses will be used in student curriculum designed in partnership with local Universities and technical colleges. Where appropriate, learning content will also be made available externally. An example of this is the recently launched “Climate Change Fundamentals” module, which can be found here.”

Whilst the initial focus area for the set-up of the regional GREENSTEEL Academies is at our primary steel sites, it will expand to encompass all our LIBERTY Steel Group businesses as part of subsequent roll-out plans.

The Academy is operational in our major primary steel plants in Romania, North Macedonia and the Czech Republic. Some of their many key achievements include:

LIBERTY Galați (Romania):

The team are working in close partnership with the local “Dunărea de Jos” University and will continue to build on their existing, successful, education and community activities, such as the Summer School programme (now into its tenth year), themed seminars and educational site visits.

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LIBERTY Skopje (North Macedonia)

Over the last few years LIBERTY Skopje in North Macedonia has faced a similar problem to many other steel businesses around the world: how can it attract skilled new blue-collar employees, especially in more highly specialist fields such as electronics and automation, in a highly dynamic local job market with growing competition from other international companies. 

The HR team, led by Vesna Velickovska, decided they needed to revitalise their educational and community programmes, which will now be incorporated into the GREENSTEEL Academy initiative. The programmes include:

• Annual internship programme – thisaims to introduce around 40 young people a year the opportunity to operate in their future work environment and identify their individual career profile. The young people are supported and guided for their 3-6 months in the business by a mentor. The business has now welcomed 323 interns through the plant over the last ten years.
• Summer school project – the plant has just celebrated its sixth successful annualspecialised internship programme, which runs over the summer holiday. The three month scheme welcomes around 10 young people from a number of local universities to work on specific STEM projects, so that they can apply their knowledge in structural and practical stages. The LIBERTY team have developed weekly thematic sessions steered towards identifying and solving specific issues, while allowing the interns to develop broad career plans, matching job requirements and skill sets.
• Community outreach programme – this is a newer initiative which has meant collaborating with eleven faculties, two vocational high schools and other vocational institutions as well as five other Macedonian companies. The programme, which now has 47 pupils taking part, presents on-site training throughout the year on processes, organization and environment via Open Days as well as initiating “Dual System” practices which has a direct impact on the content and organization of vocational education across the country.

Vesna, whose team were awarded a Chairman’s Global Excellence Award this year for their effort, said:

“The goal of our GREENSTEEL Academy programmes is to help improve our local technical schools’ curriculum, make the steel industry more attractive for the young generation and secure sufficient, technically proficient employees to help the steelworks move into a GREENSTEEL future. The proof of our success is that we have so far employed 45 of those who have taken part in our initiatives. We are really pleased that we have been able to not only help young people in our area but will make a real difference to the future of our plant and our industry.”

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LIBERTY Ostrava (Czech Republic)

The team continue to build on their programmes for younger generation and this year has offered a year’s on-the-job training to 120 local technical apprentices

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