Plastic is made from fossil fuels. Steel isn't, but we must burn an awful lot of fossil fuels in order to produce it. Iron ore must be pulled out of the ground, typically using gas-powered machinery; we then have to burn coal to make coke, in order to extract that iron in a blast furnace, which is also powered by coal.

Incredibly, Swedish Steel AB has come up with a way to make fossil-free steel. Their ore supplier, LKAB, pulls the stuff out of the ground with electricity-powered mining equipment. Rather than coke, green hydrogen (made using wind, hydro and solar energy in Sweden) is injected. The furnaces are electric, also powered by renewables. The casting is done using electric induction heating rather than the material being molted in a coal-fired furnace.

Veteran Swedish furniture designer Emma Olbers has designed the world's first piece of furniture made from fossil-free steel. Her Tellus bench, intended as street furniture, features armrests wide enough to rest a cup of coffee on, and the seating angles were created with ergonomics in mind.

The Tellus bench is in production by Norwegian outdoor manufacturer Vestre.

Below Olbers discusses her design philosophy and what she was going for with the bench. (Interestingly—perhaps this is a translation thing—her take on "form follows function" is "forms follow planetary boundaries.)

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