Through our Post Disaster Recovery Project (PIR), we have participated in the reconstruction of housing affected by the 2017 earthquake in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. To date, we have built 139 houses through a mixed finance schemed including public and private partnerships working with 1,796 people through our integral response program.

The Gómez Mandujano family was amongst those affected by the earthquake that occurred in Villahermosa, Villaflores, Chiapas, by the end of 2017. The Post Disaster Recovery Project allowed them to get back on their feet and learn the construction trade. They have built four dwellings since, for them and their neighbors. After the dwellings were built, Francisco, Luis Octavio, Fredy and Christian, from the Gómez Girón family, can complement their farming activities with construction, allowing them to increase their income and enhance their quality of life.

See our Post Disaster Recovery Project in Action.

After a decade of operation, the CEMEX-Tec de Monterrey Center for Sustainable Communities closed its doors in 2021. This Center focused on promoting a better quality of life in rural and urban environments through entrepreneurship programs, innovation, applied research, and creating spaces for collaboration. Throughout its existence, it built a unique ecosystem consisting of more than 8,600 students, social innovators, community entrepreneurs, and leaders of multi-sectoral initiatives from 90 countries and recognized high-impact projects that fostered sustainable development and social innovation through the CEMEX-TEC Award. The Center’s legacy will remain as part of CEMEX’s social businesses portfolio through Yo Construyo and the Community Environmental Restoration Program.

Two of our intrapreneurs  were selected to participate in the Young SDG Innovators Program for the UN Global Compact, in order to accelerate our contribution to the 2030 Agenda.

Here is what they think.

Human rights are the fundamental rights, freedoms, and standards of treatment to which all people are entitled. Respecting human rights is reinforced in our core value of “Acting with Integrity”, which is embedded in the way we do business.

At CEMEX, we aim to align our strategy and operations with universal principles of human rights. We understand that these principles constitute a global standard of expected corporate conduct applicable to all our operations.

Accordingly, we are actively and continuously determined to meet our responsibility to respect all human rights while fostering their respect among our business partners.

As a signatory and active participant in the UN Global Compact (UNGC) since 2004, we reaffirm our support of its 10 principles on Human Rights, Labor, Environment, and Anti-Corruption. To demonstrate our strong commitment to these principles, we annually submit an Advanced Communication of Progress (COP) to the UNGC. We currently preside the UN Global Compact Network in Mexico, working towards integrating these principles in other Mexican companies.

In 2018 we upgraded our Human Rights Policy reflecting our support and respect for the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights principles, as expressed in the International Bill of Human Rights and the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. In addition, it recognizes employees, communities, contractors, and suppliers as main areas of impact and reaffirms our commitment to the promotion of and respect for human rights throughout our worldwide operations, local communities, and supply chain.

We have carried out a Human Rights Compliance Assessment, which led to the overall identification of the main potential impacts on people in our operations and value chain. After classifying these issues based on their likelihood of occurrence and impact severity, we prioritized them and confirmed that the assessment indicated CEMEX's five potential salient human rights impacts, which are:

• Health and Safety
• Environmental Footprint
• Community Impacts
• Diversity and Discrimination
• Work-life Balance

Functions such as: H&S, Operations, Procurement, Human Resources, Sustainability, Social Impact, Legal, Public Affairs, and ERM work as ONE CEMEX on mitigating actions.

Examples of actions conducted include:

• Monthly environmental and social incidents report, detailing all events in the period, used to register and track events and actions to solve them, through direct messaging from our CEO.
• Social Impact Committees across all geographies, which enable us to learn from our neighbors and incorporate insights into our human rights promotion and respect strategy.
• Inclusive business models tackling poverty and housing needs.

Moreover, our global grievance mechanisms enable us to maintain permanent communication with our key stakeholder groups, especially those that might be vulnerable under certain circumstances. These open communication channels enable us to obtain valuable feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of implemented mitigation actions based on identified risks to people.

Our main grievance mechanisms include:

a. ETHOSline: We seek to pursue that our values remain alive and our Code of Ethics is properly managed. Therefore, we encourage our employees, stakeholders, and the general public to submit suggestions, inquiries, and possible violations through our ETHOSline communication channel available 24/7.

b. Global and Local Ethics Committees: Composed of representatives from different functions in each of the countries in which we operate, these dedicated taskforces seek to ensure awareness and enforcement of our Code of Ethics. All of them receive, investigate, and collaborate to resolve reported ethics breaches, including those related to human rights.

c. Stakeholder Dialogues: Aimed at getting to know and understand our stakeholders’ needs and concerns, these dialogues enable us to identify potential impacts on people and properly address them.

d. Social Impact Committees: Composed of each plant’s director and local environmental officials, trade union representatives, local mayors of nearby towns, neighborhood representatives, and other local institutions, these groups aim to build positive, sustainable relationships with neighboring communities.

Women's rights are human rights

In 2010, the United Nations’ Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the United Nations Global Compact, collaborated to establish a set of principles providing businesses with guidance on how to empower women at work, at home, and in their lives. The Women's Empowerment Principles are as follows:

1. Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality;
2. Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support human rights and nondiscrimination;
3. Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers;
4. Promote education, training and professional development for women;
5. Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women;
6. Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy and
7. Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality.

CEMEX is a signatory to the principles and works inwards and outwards to ensure their recognition and application.

To read more about how we comply with the principles within our Company please follow the link.

Although we have observed a worldwide change in the de-stigmatization of social roles traditionally allocated to certain genders, there is much to be done in this realm. According to the latest UN Women Figures (2018), it is estimated that gender gaps cost the economy an average of 15% of GDP. In addition, while educational attainment has increased for the majority of women, this does not necessarily translate to better opportunities. Women’s inclusion is not only a matter of social justice, but also an economic and business imperative.

Our Community Diversity and Inclusion Model fosters women's economic empowerment through education and capabilities development, enabling them to become agents of social change within their families and communities through four pillars:

1. Self-esteem
2. Education and Health
3. Development of Technical Capabilities
4. Development of Entrepreneurship and Employability Capabilities

We develop the technical and leadership capabilities of women of all ages to empower them economically, through employment or entrepreneurship, contributing directly to SDG targets 10.2 and 8.5.

To read more about CEMEX's position on Women Economic Empowerment in the Communities, please see our position paper here.

CEMEX is a signatory to the principles and works inwards and outwards to ensure their recognition and application.

More than 30 years ago, CEMEX partnered with ANSPAC, a not-for-profit organization that offers technical training and counselling to women that live near our operations. This partnership later evolved into the project called: “We are all hope”, this project provides training and education to women on the communities we work in. Students learn technical and soft skills they can directly apply towards conducting productive activities. Women are also provided with mentoring for developing their own businesses. This project has empowered women locally and for them to act as agents of change in their families and communities.