Sustainability initiatives
GrainCorp has a number of exciting large scale sustainability initiatives on foot, including the implementation of a diverse range of projects across several locations, such as:
- Arbroath, Scotland and Pinkenba, Australia – energy and water efficiency was at the forefront of the design of malt plants recently developed at Arbroath (Scotland) and Pinkenba (Australia). Modernisation and automation of the malting process such as germination vessels and conveying equipment significantly reduces water and energy consumption at both plants.
- Pocatello (Idaho), USA – reclamation of waste heat from a neighbouring organisation’s polysilicone plant to offset Great Western Malting’s (GWM) natural gas use at its Pocatello malt plant. GWM has entered the agreement with the City of Pocatello and the polysilicone producer that also improves rail and road access to site. The malt plant expects to reduce its carbon footprint by 55%, making it one of the lowest carbon footprint malt plants in the world.
- Alberta, Canada – Canada Malting Co (CMC) has entered a heat and reclaimed water sharing agreement with energy provider ENMAX at CMC’s Calgary malt plant. The agreement involves CMC reclaiming its effluent malting process water and providing ENMAX high quality reclaimed water in return for the option to procure heat and steam from ENMAX. The initiative also replaces an existing CMC onsite lagoon that will be reclaimed and leased by ENMAX. It is anticipated the initiative will recycle over 97% of the Calgary malt plant’s process wastewater.
- Geelong (Victoria), Australia – development of a reverse osmosis treatment system at Barrett Burston Malting’s (BBM) Geelong malt plant to treat and reuse malting process water. Bairds Malt is also looking into a waste water recycling facility at its Witham malting facility in England.
- New South Wales, Australia – several of GrainCorp’s facilities are installing or have installed power factor correction apparatus to achieve more efficient electricity supply to site infrastructure facilities.
| ENMAX - Bonnybrook Energy Centre - (artist’s impression) |
Hoku Plant (development progress) |
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For more information about these and other sustainability initiatives please visit the below 2010 GrainCorp Sustainability Initiatives document.
GrainCorp also undertakes smaller scale sustainability initiatives right across the business. A recent energy efficiency initiative has been to adapt Storage & Logistics operations to ensure materials handling equipment is switched off when not in use. Also recently, GrainCorp staff participated in a “Handy Old Bags” campaign where Sydney head office staff provided unused bags to stores in their local communities for reuse.
Comments, feedback or enquiries about GrainCorp’s commitment to the environment and sustainability can be directed to enquiries@graincorp.com.au