SteelOrbis talked to Gökhan Erdem, sales and marketing director at Çolakoğlu Metalurji, regarding 2025 review and 2026 expectations.
How did 2025 go for the Turkish steel sector and for Çolakoğlu Metalurji?
2025 was a period marked by intense uncertainty and shrinking demand on a global scale. Despite this, the Turkish steel sector managed to maintain its resilience thanks to the experience it had gained in previous years. As producers, we chose to manage this period with steps focused on increasing efficiency, innovative investments, green transformation, and digitalization. All these efforts further strengthened the global competitiveness of the Turkish steel industry.
As Çolakoğlu Metalurji, we currently have an annual production capacity of 3 million tons of liquid steel, 4.5 million mt of hot rolled flat steel, and 1 million mt of ribbed construction steel. We make a strong contribution to both our sector and the Turkish economy by exporting to more than 150 countries. Throughout 2024 and 2025, we actively participated in national and international fairs, promoting our products while aiming to increase the global visibility of the Turkish steel sector. During this period, we have been active in more than 35 countries across a wide geography stretching from Europe to the Middle East, Africa to North America, including the UK, Germany, the US, Spain, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Norway, and Australia. We aim to close this period, in which we deepened our existing partnerships, with over 3 million mt by the end of 2025.
For us, sustainable success is not limited to production figures. Throughout 2025, we resolutely continued our approach of adding value to people and society. Within the scope of university-industry partnerships, we offered summer internships to 80 young people. We prioritized projects that support youth employment. As part of our social responsibility efforts, we aimed to contribute to regional development by launching sports club projects for young people in Dilovası.
One of our most important priorities in 2025 was to reduce carbon emissions in our production processes and accelerate the green transition. With advanced technology investments, we have both increased our production efficiency and advanced our low-carbon production journey. While deepening our business processes with digital systems, we aimed to spread CBAM-compliant carbon data transparency in the supply chain. We will continue to lead our country's green transformation process in the coming period.
Furthermore, as of this year, we have initiated the planning process for a biodiversity project focused on protecting natural life and supporting biological diversity. In line with our sustainability strategy, “Bringing Life to the Steel of the Future,” we prioritize minimizing environmental impacts and protecting ecosystems as fundamental areas of responsibility. In this context, we aim to implement targets for the protection and improvement of biodiversity in collaboration with our stakeholders.
At Çolakoğlu Metalurji, we have expanded our digitalization steps in the field of human resources in 2025 by building our working life on the protection of employee rights, the development of competencies, and the support of career journeys, starting from the recruitment process. We have renewed our intranet system and made the employee experience more efficient and accessible with HR Chatbot and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) projects. Thanks to this digital transformation, we have adopted a more holistic HR approach that increases our employees' active participation in human resource processes.
What are your expectations for 2026?
2026 will be a decisive turning point for the steel sector, particularly in terms of carbon regulations and trade rules. We are closely monitoring the implementation of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) in the European Union and the parallel regulations in Turkey. In particular, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which comes into force in the European Union as of January 2026, will impose a carbon tax on imports, which is a significant development that could create cost pressure on the sector. We see this process not only as a risk but also as an area of transformation that can be turned into a competitive advantage if managed correctly. In this regard, we are making the necessary preparations and regularly informing our business partners and customers.
Our priority is to continue meeting Turkey's steel needs while increasing the share of low-emission and value-added products in exports in the new period. In this way, we aim to offer sustainable solutions for our customers and strengthen our contribution to our country's economy.
As Çolakoğlu Metalurji, in line with our vision of “Bringing Steel to Life for the Future”, we will continue to progress in the areas of responsible production, value for people and society, sustainable growth, and corporate resilience, in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By integrating our Green Steel vision and zero-emission targets with digitalization, we aim to be one of the leading actors of transformation in the Turkish steel sector.
In this context, we aim to reduce our emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and reach Net Zero Emissions by 2050. We view this goal not only as an environmental responsibility but also as a strategic vision that enhances our company's long-term competitiveness.
Social sustainability is also among our priority agenda items for 2026 and beyond. We aim to increase the proportion of female employees to 25 percent by 2030, making equality a corporate principle. Through our Zero Accident vision and the projects we carry out through the Çolakoğlu Sports Club (ÇMSK), we continue our efforts to make employee well-being and social contribution an integral part of our corporate culture.
As an institution that transforms life and industry together for future generations, we will continue to develop reliable, innovative, and sustainable steel solutions in 2026, guiding our sector by contributing to both the national economy and global climate goals.