On Tuesday, October 21, 2025 (Pacific), Meta did something deceptively simple: it agreed to buy the first environmental-attribute credits (EACs) tied to low-carbon iron from Electra, a U.S. startup reinventing ironmaking. If this works, steel and cement could follow the same market logic that helped renewables scale: buy the attributes first, then the molecules catch up.
What happened—and why it’s novel
Electra announced three things at once: (1) binding purchase orders for its clean iron from Nucor (the largest U.S. steelmaker), Toyota Tsusho and Interfer Edelstahl; (2) a 130,000-square-foot demonstration plant in Jefferson County, Colorado, targeted to produce up to 500 tons of clean iron per year;
