Industrial Traceability Intelligence
Steel has roots.
Real emissions begin upstream.
VIRTUS connects routes, precursors, industrial reality and CBAM exposure to understand the true origin of steel.
Core visual framework
The four VIRTUS slides
Letter from the Founder
To reconnect emissions data with industrial reality.
My name is Marco Mariani.
For more than thirty years I have been operating internationally across the steel, wire rod, stainless steel tubes and ferroalloys sectors between Europe and Asia.
As both: — an importer directly exposed to CBAM mechanisms, — and shareholder of a European steel wire drawing enterprise with more than 100 years of industrial history,
I started asking myself a simple question:
Where does steel really come from?
And above all:
How can we truly understand its CO2e?
Over the last years, I realized that most discussions around steel emissions were increasingly focused on reporting systems, declarations and theoretical assumptions.
But steel is not theoretical.
Steel is physical. Industrial. Metallurgical.
Every production route generates different realities.
For this reason, I developed VIRTUS — The Origin of Steel.
An independent industrial initiative focused on: • steel routes, • precursors, • industrial traceability, • real embedded emissions, • and upstream industrial understanding.
VIRTUS is not focused on generic green steel narratives.
Its objective is to better understand: how steel is actually produced, which industrial routes are used, what upstream materials enter the process, and how this reality may increasingly influence competitiveness under the new CBAM environment.
Over the last year I have been visiting steel plants, ferroalloy smelters, wire rod mills and downstream processors across Europe and Asia to better understand how industrial traceability is evolving inside the real supply chain.
The objective is simple:
To reconnect emissions data with industrial reality.
VIRTUS THE ORIGIN OF STEEL
Industrial Traceability Manifesto
Green Steel is not a label. It is the consequence of a complete industrial chain.
Steel is not a uniform material.
The same product. The same HS code. The same declaration.
Completely different industrial realities.
Every EAF ≠ EAF Every DRI ≠ DRI
Electricity mix. Scrap quality. Pig iron additions. DRI/HBI origin. Ferroalloys. Lime & dolomite. Upstream processing. Industrial allocation.
All generate different industrial routes. Therefore: different emissions.
For decades, the market focused mainly on the final product itself.
Today, industrial competitiveness is progressively shifting upstream.
The future will increasingly require: • traceability, • route transparency, • precursor understanding, • and verifiable industrial logic behind emissions data.
Green Steel is not a label. It is not a geography. It is not a marketing category.
It is the consequence of a complete industrial chain.
VIRTUS was created to explore and understand this industrial reality.
Not from a theoretical perspective. But from inside the steel supply chain itself.
The Origin of Steel is not only about carbon.
It is about industrial truth.
Routes. Precursors. Real emissions. Industrial DNA.
VIRTUS