A lesser known – but major – aspect of CSR’s operations is the range of environmentally friendly products and services we offer as well as the amount of recycling that we carry out.

Renewable energy

Increasing production of renewable energy

CSR's Sugar and Renewable Energy business is now known as Sucrogen. The renewable energy plants at Sucrogen’s raw sugar mills are fuelled by waste sugarcane fibre (bagasse), produced in large quantities by milling.

The plants reduce Australia's reliance on electricity generated from fossil fuels and lowers greenhouse gas emissions – avoiding the emission of 165,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Sucrogen’s sugar mills now generate over 607,000 megawatt hours of electricity a year from renewable sources, enough for 81,000 homes.  The reduced carbon dioxide emission compared with power generated from fossil fuels is equivalent to taking 136,000 motor cars off the road.

Ethanol fuel additives

Sucrogen's BioEthanol is one of Australia’s two largest renewable fuel ethanol producers supplying over 280 petrol stations. Sucrogen’s fuel ethanol is an efficient and renewable product, produced from molasses, a by-product of sugar milling.

Saving energy

CSR Bradford Insulation’s glasswool and rockwool products play an important role in saving energy, providing thermal and acoustic insulation in dwellings, factories and machinery. In houses, for example, such products can reduce heating and cooling requirements by as much as 40%.

Resource recovery

The group provides a range of environmentally related products and services.

Biodunder™

Previously a waste product, the biologically rich dunder produced at Sucrogen’s Sarina Distillery, is sold to local sugarcane farmers as Biodunder™, a cost-effective fertiliser, eliminating the need to dispose of this environmentally sensitive material by other means.

Recycling raw materials

CSR Bradford Insulation’s glasswool insulation products are manufactured from around 70% recycled glass.

GreenSmart program

CSR is part of an alliance with the GreenSmart program – a partnership between the Commonwealth Government’s Environment Australia; Greening Australia, a community based organisation; and the Housing Industry Association of Australia (HIA).

GreenSmart aims to encourage the building of affordable, environmentally friendly and energy efficient housing, the recycling of materials and reduction of waste.