CSR Limited (CSR), founded in 1855 as the Colonial Sugar Refinery, has diversified and grown to become one of Australia’s leading publicly listed companies. It is now Australia’s largest sugar producer, a leading supplier of building products (including plasterboard, cement, bricks, roof tiles and insulation) to the construction industry, and smelts aluminium. It has operations for its three principal businesses throughout Australia as well as in New Zealand and Asia. It describes its charter as a commitment to act responsibly, ensuring staff deal appropriately with the communities in which they operate, in order to gain their support. This philosophy is consistent with the general business notion of corporate social responsibility, which often also goes by the abbreviation ‘CSR’, and is the focus of much of this chapter.

Sustainability is a related concept, requiring the use of resources to enable society to satisfy current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives are in evidence in CSR’s activities. The company has a Workplace Giving program in which the company matches employee contributions to charity — dollar for dollar. CSR’s employees have selected 14 charities that benefit from this initiative and in its first 11 years of operation until 2015, $2.6 million was donated. In addition, CSR donated more than $30 000 of building products and installation services to the Habitat for Humanity organisation, which helped to build 12 homes for needy Australians. CSR also contributed $50 000 to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal for communities affected by floods in the north of the state, and donated laptops and secondary schooling packages to the Youth off the Streets organisation, one of its three main partner charities, for its scholarship program. It has also assisted Youth Off the Streets provide short‐ and longterm accommodation. CSR Sugar pledged $30 000 over six years for university scholarships to economicall  and educationally disadvantaged Australian South Sea Islanders in North Queensland.

Ancestors of this ethnic group had been brought into Australia as indentured labourers to work on sugar plantations in the late 19th century. CSR supports Assistance Dogs Australia and the Salvation Army, its other two major partner charities. The company also planted 300 trees and removed harmful weeds at its Gyprock site at Coopers Plains in Queensland. It undertakes regular testing upstream from the site in an effort to improve water quality. Since 2011 CSR employees volunteered 970 hours of their time for mentoring in the community. The company reduced its total greenhouse emissions by 13 per cent, its solid waste by 33 per cent and potable water usage by 13 per cent between 2011 and 2014.

QUESTION

What are some other ways that the company could contribute to corporate social responsibility? Do you think the company does enough considering in 2015 it earned A$2 billion in revenue and its statutory net profit was A$125.5 million?