<p>Although the blast furnace process is the largest source of CO₂ emissions in the steel industry, it remains dominant due to its high productivity, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility in ore usage. Still, as CO₂-reduction policies expand, the steel industry and consequently the blast furnace must evolve toward significantly lower emissions. For this purpose, Paul Wurth S.A. has unveiled EASyMelt, a stepwise solution to cut blast furnace CO₂ emissions by integrating multiple cutting-edge carbon-reduction technologies, such as reducing gas injection, top-gas recycling, gas reforming, and plasma heating. This study introduces the EASyMelt concept and provides a comprehensive techno-economic assessment of multiple implementation pathways, each using a different combination of energy vectors such as coke oven gas, natural gas, pure hydrogen, ammonia, and hot briquetted iron. Leveraging a multi-fluid numerical model, the analysis reveals that EASyMelt scenarios significantly impact the furnace’s thermal state, chemical behavior, and cohesive zone characteristics. Understanding these factors is critical to ensure successful and efficient implementation. EASyMelt deployment using natural gas and coke oven gas is found to reduce CO₂ emission of crude steel production by 47 pct while delivering operational expenditure savings at the current European carbon price of 72 €/t_CO2. Further integration of green energy vectors further enhances the environmental benefits: ammonia addition achieves a 63 pct reduction, hydrogen reaches 64 pct, and a combination of ammonia and hot briquetted iron push savings to 70 pct. While these advanced configurations require slightly higher carbon prices to maintain operational expenditure parity, such levels are likely to be reached shortly.</p>