Sustainability Model
Our Social Impact Strategy, originating from our sustainability model which ensures sustainability is embedded on every aspect of our business, seeks to create a better future through fostering sustainability and resiliency and ultimately improving the quality of life and well-being of stakeholders through a culture that:
• Contributes to our license to operate
• Creates a positive experience for our stakeholders
• Creates shared value
• Strengthens our brand
In order to ensure appropriate community engagement and prepare our Community Engagement Plans (CEPs), we follow a bespoke process. Through this process, the Company is focused on leveraging stakeholder engagement to pursue shared value and other co-created projects to positively impact society and the environment.
The steps in this process are as follows:
Step 1. Stakeholder identification and management
Through our meaningful dialogues with stakeholders, we continue to develop and strengthen trustworthy relationships to take action locally, accelerate solutions to challenges, and contribute to local economic development.
To foster regular internal and external dialogue that informs and guides our CEPs, we organize inward-facing and externally orientedSocial Impact Committees. These multi-disciplinary committees contribute to the management of community issues, provide expert opinion on topics of concern to stakeholders, make commitments to follow-up on issues related to their areas, and contribute to the design, execution, and evaluation of our stakeholder engagement efforts.
Step 2. Impact identification and management
We are aware of our industry’s negative impacts, including pollution, traffic, and biodiversity loss, and as part of our strategy, we work collectively to address them. To this end, we identify and manage our impacts, create plans to diminish them through a management process, and build competences in our employees.
Step 3. Risk identification and management
All operations are committed to continuously assess the levels of risk and their potential implications, not only for our financial bottom line, but also for our social and environmental footprints. To this end, we regularly engage with stakeholders to openly address potential risks, operate transparently, and work on anticipating issues to address them proactively.
Step 4. Co-design and implementation of Community Engagement Plans
To implement our Social Impact Strategy, we co-create CEPs by aligning both our business priorities and the local needs. CEPs allow us to collaborate and invest together with the communities we live and operate in through four community investment pillars:
- Education and capability development for employability
- Sustainable and resilient infrastructure and mobility
- Social and environmental innovation and entrepreneurship
- Culture of environmental protection, health and safety
Each CEP is comprised of initiatives, projects, and programs conceived through participative processes focused on developing people, communities, and preserving the environment. Our CEPs integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into our investment pillars to ensure accountability, transparency, and track progress towards our goals.
By 2021, 93% of our cement plants have put Community Engagement Plans into action
Step 5. Evaluation and measurement
Through our CEPs community initiatives, we also contribute directly to other underlying SDGs, including 1, 3, 4, 5, 12 and 17. We measure our progress through our sustainability 2030 targets, KPIs designed for each project and impact measurement on selected pilot projects.
Step 6. Communication
We communicate our results and progress externally and internally through our Integrated Report, our Social Impact Practices Booklet, our annual Communication on Progress with the UN Global Compact, CDP, KPMG net value to society, press releases and case studies.
Our Purpose “Building a better future”.
We contribute through our operations and actions to build a sustainable and fair future for all our stakeholders. In order to achieve this where we operate, we work by anticipating risks and identifying or managing our negative impacts and developing and implementing programs for increasing positive impacts related to our business.