verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message csr limited type public company traded as asx csr industry building materials founded sydney australia headquarters north ryde new south wales australia area served australia new zealand united states products glass plasterboard bricks insulation aluminium services construction revenue a 1.74 billion 2014 1 operating income a 125 million 2014 net income a 88 million 2014 number of employees 2 985 2014 website http www.csr.com.au csr limited is a major australian industrial company producing building products and having a 25 % share in the tomago aluminium smelter located near newcastle new south wales . it is publicly traded on the australian securities exchange . in 2012 it has approximately 3 600 employees and reported an after tax profit of 90.7 million pre significant items . the company has a diversified shareholding with predominantly australian fund managers and retail owners . the current managing director is rob sindel a csr employee since 2009 and the chairman of the board of directors is jeremy sutcliffe the former managing director of sims metal . the group s corporate headquarters is in north ryde triniti 3 building a suburb of sydney . founded in sydney in 1855 as the colonial sugar refining company the company expanded into milling cane in queensland and fiji from the 1870s . it quickly became the most important miller and refiner in australasia with a virtual monopoly on queensland and fiji sugar production up to respectively 1989 and 1972 . it also sold by products of the sugar industry from mollasses to ethanol . in 2010 csr sold its sugar and ethanol business which had been given the name sucrogen in 2009 to the singaporean company wilmar . as of 2015 the business is known as wilmar sugar . the company began to diversify into building products as early as 1942 with the construction of a plaster mill in sydney and in 1947 the company began manufacturing plasterboard there bringing the product to the australian market . it acquired bradford insulation in 1959 which produced heat insulation materials for buildings and currently has a substantial share of the insulation market in australia . it has established insulation businesses in china thailand and malaysia originally in joint ventures with local partners but now wholly owned . the company also produces fibre cement sheeting aerated concrete products bricks and systems to support plasterboard construction through rondo a joint venture with boral . it spun off its interests in heavy building products then producing more than half the group s profits to a separate listed company rinker group in 2003 . in 2007 csr acquired the australasian glass businesses of pilkington and the melbourne based glass processing company dms glass subsequently renaming both as viridian . contents 1 sugar milling and refining 2 wittenoom controversy 3 see also 4 references 5 external links sugar milling and refining edit founded in sydney in 1855 as the colonial sugar refining company the company first began refining imported raw sugar expanding into the melbourne market in the 1870s . over the next two decades mills were established in queensland and fiji which began to process domestically grown sugar . in 1923 the queensland state government signed an agreement with csr to refine all of that state s sugar production a monopoly that was to continue until 1989 16 years after csr had left fiji . at that time about 80 % of production was exported . csr separated its sugar and energy businesses from its building products business in 2009 which resulted in the creation of sucrogen as csr s sugar and energy business . it then operated seven sugar mills in queensland victoria mill and macknade mill in the herbert river region centered around the town of ingham ; invicta mill inkerman mill kalamia mill and pioneer mill in the burdekin region ; and plane creek mill at sarina south of mackay . csr also owned a 75 % share in the sugar australia refineries in melbourne and mackay the other 25 % being mackay sugar co operative s and in the chelsea sugar refinery in auckland . using the molasses by product from the sugar mills the company also distilled ethanol for use in fuel ethanol manufacture and varying grades of domestic industrial ethanols for food production and other chemical processes . the csr brand was used on most of the retail sugar products produced . the production made up around 60 % of the sugar on the australian domestic market and 80 % of that in new zealand . sucrogen was sold to singapore company wilmar international in 2010 . 2 wittenoom controversy edit between 1948 and 1966 csr operated mines at wittenoom western australia that produced 161 000 tons of crocidolite fibre . 3 during this time thousands of workers and their families visitors tourists consultants and government officials were exposed to potentially lethal levels of blue asbestos almost a thousand times higher than occupationally regulated at the time . many of them would develop fatal diseases due to this such as pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer . despite warnings from the western australia health department and other health authorities in the early 1960s csr continued to operate the mine until 1966 . the first court victory for the wittenoom victims was in 1988 when klaus rabenault won his case against midalco a subsidiary of csr that ran the mines . the judge ruled that csr acted with continuing conscious and contumelious disregard for its workers safety and that rabenault should be awarded 426 000 by way of compensation and 250 000 in punitive damages . 4 it is predicted that by 2020 almost a third of the people who passed through wittenoom during the mines operating years would be diagnosed with a fatal disease caused by their dangerous exposures to blue asbestos . this would be an estimated 2000 cases totaling costs of 500 million aus in damages from csr . 5 in the 1980s csr was pursued by victims of asbestosis caused by the operation of its midalco subsidiary in western australia . by 1988 258 damage related suits had been taken against csr though only a handful of cases had been heard in the courts . in may that year a victorian court made an award of a 680 000 against midalco to a former worker after he contracted the fatal lung cancer mesothelioma ; and in august lesser amounts were awarded to other workers against csr itself 22 . finally in 1989 and the following year a settlement was made . meanwhile csr and the state government insurance commission of western australia were engaged in a dispute as to which of them was responsible for payment of the damages to the tortured workforce and their dependents with csr arguing that it was not responsible for liabilities sustained by its midalco subsidiary . the two bodies finally reached agreement in early 1989 to share the costs of compensation 23 . a 15 million would be paid out by each of them to cover damages for the seven year period of operation of the wittenoom mine with an additional total of a 20 million payable to claimants who worked there before 1959 23 . by the end of that year researchers at the queen elizabeth ii medical centre and the sir charles gairdner hospital in perth had estimated that a further 692 workers would fall victim to mesothelioma with another 183 cases of lung cancer to be expected . they predicted another 432 successful claims would be made in addition to the 356 already accepted 24 . 6 at the beginning of 1990 322 workers had been compensated 25 . a few months later csr made a partial re entry into mining when it bought up 48 quarries from the us arc subsidiary of the british hanson corporation . it also pulled out of a plasterboard joint venture with redland plasterboard established in 1987 while retaining its australian and new zealand interests through monier pgh a company with around half of the australian roofing tile market 26 . the mining and milling of blue asbestos at wittenoom is as of 2004 the greatest single industrial disaster in australia s history . 7 the song blue sky mine by australian rock band midnight oil is about the disaster . see also edit chelsea sugar refinery edward knox rinker group boral wittenoom western australia references edit csr financial results pdf . csr.com.au . retrieved 2015 05 09 . 1 archived 23 march 2012 at the wayback machine . sli management of dust hazards and diseases the wittenoom disaster . web.archive.org . archived from the original on 2006 12 31 . retrieved 2015 05 09 . p119 . hills ben . blue murder 1989 p144 145 . hills ben . blue murder 1989 2 archived 29 august 2007 at the wayback machine . adsa . asbestosdiseases.org.au . 1961 09 25 . retrieved 2015 05 09 . external links edit csr corporate site early history of csr in sydney colonial sugar refining co ltd . dictionary of sydney . dictionary of sydney trust . 2008 . retrieved 16 october 2015 . . authority control worldcat identities viaf 156447002 lccn n88055895 gnd 16306985 2 nla 35104074 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title csr limited & oldid 737656875 categories companies based in sydneycompanies listed on the australian securities exchangefood and drink companies of australiaindustrial accidents and incidentsmanufacturing companies of australiasugar companieshidden categories articles with wayback machine linksarticles needing additional references from may 2015all articles needing additional referencesuse australian english from april 2014all wikipedia articles written in australian englishuse dmy dates from april 2014pages using infobox company with unsupported parameterswikipedia articles with viaf identifierswikipedia articles with lccn identifierswikipedia articles with gnd identifierswikipedia articles with nla identifiers navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 4 september 2016 at 07 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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