CEMENTOS MEXICANOS (CEMEX)

“We are committed to ensuring the well-being
of our employees, protecting the environment,
and contributing to the growth of societal infrastructure and
the development of our communities.” [1]

Company and Industry Profile:

Cementos Mexicanos, a Mexican company that was founded in 1906, is a leading global producer and marketer of quality cement and ready-mix concrete products that works to provide building solutions for customers around the world and to create sustainable value for its stakeholders. In Mexico, the company has established nationwide coverage with 15 strategically located cement plants, 211 ready-mix concrete facilities, 68 land distribution centers, and 8 marine terminals, and has a production capacity of 27.2 millions of metric tons/year.

Cement is an essential building material, yet producing it is an energy and resource-intensive process. As a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, CEMEX was one of ten leading cement companies to participate in the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), a project that explored ways for the industry to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

CEMEX is committed to helping its customers, employees, communities, and stockholders to build a better future, to provide building solutions for clients around the world, and to create sustainable value for its investors. To achieve a more sustainable society, the company is committed to working in six areas: climate protection, fuels and raw materials, employee health and safety, emissions reduction, local impacts, and internal business processes.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy:

The promise of CEMEX to social responsibility is rooted in its 98-year history of helping communities to build infrastructure. The company’s commitment to social responsibility guides their strategy “to run an efficient and profitable business while caring for the needs of the environment and the communities.”[2]

CEMEX’s approach to managing a responsible corporation consists of specific policies that require all of their businesses, subsidiaries, and units to adhere to some primary actions that ensure the safety and satisfaction of their employees, customers, communities, and the environment. These actions are to employ cutting-edge technology to guarantee the optimal use of energy and raw materials, to promote a culture of environmental awareness, and to use the most effective equipment to safeguard people.

Community Outreach:

According to their longstanding strategy to society, the company works to improve the well-being of communities around the world through educational, cultural, infrastructure, and community-development initiatives. CEMEX’s actions range from scholarships for children in Costa Rica to medical and dental care for communities in the Philippines, education of young girls in Egypt, and the support of non-profit centers for disabled children in Venezuela, among others.

In Mexico, through a multi-sector alliance with the federal, state, and local governments, CEMEX provides Mexico's poorest residents with concrete floors to stand on. Through the "Piso Firme" program, the company has helped over 200,000 disadvantaged families by replacing their dirt floors with antibacterial concrete. Also, through their "Patrimonio Hoy" initiative, the company has helped more than 103,000 low-income families that live on the Mexican side of the border to own their own homes. They accomplished this by organizing the families into self-financing cells that facilitate home-building, and by assisting those family members who live in the United States to transfer money to their families in Mexico, for covering construction expenses.

U.S. – Mexico Border Projects: El Carmen Projec:.
As part of CEMEX's conservation and environmental policies, the company initiated, in 1997, the El Carmen Project. This was a joint effort with the Sierra Madre Association to preserve the natural environment of one of Northern Mexico's richest ecological zones.

Located in Coahuila state, just south of the U.S. – Mexico border and east of the Chihuahua Desert, El Carmen Project reinforces the commitment of the company in the region. The project aims to recover endangered species as part of the natural resource management and intends to offer economic means to local communities.

This region has historically been seen as an important mining and forestry center that maintains its natural richness and beauty as a result of its isolation. However, it faces some social and economic circumstances that have jeopardized the preservation of animals like “El Carmen” white tail deer, the javalina, the mule deer, 70 other mammal species, 50 reptiles, and some amphibians.

The Project includes the bio-preservation of 55 thousand hectares of land, of which 60% are part of the Wildlife Protection Area of the Maderas de El Carmen. The project incorporates several actions to preserve species, ecosystems, and biological corridors, along with preservation of the history and culture of the area. The Project seeks to restore wilderness areas damaged by human activity by recovering and protecting native flora and fauna that has become extinct or is in danger of becoming so.

A few years ago, World Wildlife Fund-USA, Bird-life International, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC), among other national and international organizations designated this area as one of the most ecologically threatened regions in the world. Today, El Carmen and the Cañon de Santa Elena projects have become part of the Conservation Regions of Priority, established by CONABIO (National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity), Profauna, Pronatura, World Wildlife Fund, Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, USAID, The Nature Conservancy, and INE, (National Ecology Institute). They have succeeded, together with other campaigns, in turning the region into one of the world’s largest protected areas and last refuges of the natural world.

In 2003 CEMEX selected the El Paso Community Foundation to be its philanthropic partner in the El Carmen project.  To date, the company has contributed over $1.4 million to this initiative.  Future plans include border-wide environmental grantmaking.

As John M. Fahey, Jr. states, “CEMEX's El Carmen Project… is particularly relevant in that it demonstrates what can be accomplished when there is committed collaboration between industry, conservation organizations and academia.”[3]