CEMEX-Tecnológico de Monterrey Center
Since its foundation in Mexico in 2010, the goal of the CEMEX - Tecnológico de Monterrey Center for Sustainable Communities is to promote sustainable communities through applied research, innovation, and entrepreneurship programs, creating opportunities for collaboration with academia, civil society, and the public and private sectors, in order to raise the quality of life in rural and urban environments.
To learn more about the Center and its services please follow this link.
The Center consists of four main areas:
Through these programs, we promote entrepreneurship, employability, and a culture of self-management and capacity development in communities. Examples of these programs include Yo Construyo, which promotes self-employment in construction, and the Community Environmental Restoration Program, which promotes local networks for environmental initiatives development.
Through multidisciplinary research, we evaluate communities surrounding our operations, aiming to improve access to safe, affordable services, while making them more resilient and self-sufficient, contributing directly to SDG 11 through targets 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, and 11.6. The Center has conducted 14 socio-economic baseline studies of communities in Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama. Through these studies, a multidisciplinary group of researchers from the Center generate models to reconfigure urban and rural areas involving inhabitants to create proposals for community improvement.
In addition to our Social Impact Process, our Company, through the CEMEX-Tecnológico de Monterrey Center, considers international initiatives, such as the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Program (ESC's) from IDB, the Global Platform for Sustainable Cities (GPSC) and the City Prosperity Index (UN), as a framework to design social baseline studies within our operations.
CEMEX considers urban development, economic, social and environmental criteria, based on the Model of Sustainable Communities (see below) developed by the CEMEX-Tecnológico de Monterrey Center, which establishes the ideal features that a community must fulfill on its path towards sustainability.
Model of Sustainable Communities
The Center creates a unique social impact ecosystem comprised of innovative students, social and community entrepreneurs, and leaders of multi-sectoral collaborative action initiatives, and recognizes social innovation through the CEMEX-TEC Award and its continued relationship with the ecosystem.
CEMEX-TEC Award annually recognizes entrepreneurs and students who develop high-impact projects that foster sustainable development and social innovation. The Award includes training, financing, and networking, contributing directly to SDG 8 targets 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and 8.6. And is open to students, entrepreneurs, and new micro, small, and medium social enterprises (MSME's) from all over the globe. In 2019, this Award recognized 33 high-impact projects from entrepreneurs and innovators in 16 different countries. In addition to the Award’s existing Transforming Communities and Social Entrepreneurs categories, this year we launched two new categories: Community Entrepreneurship and Collaborative Action. Throughout its history, the CEMEX-TEC Award has built a unique ecosystem of more than 8,600 students, social innovators, community entrepreneurs and leaders of multi-sectorial initiatives from 90 countries. To achieve this worldwide participation, the CEMEX-TEC Award partners with important and innovative global institutions such as Ashoka, MassChallenge, Impact Hub, Makesense, and the Sirolli Institute, together with 600 universities and more than 100 academic partners.
Watch a video of our CEMEX-TEC Award 2019.
In 2020, this Award recognized 33 high-impact projects from entrepreneurs and innovators in 13 different countries.
Projects can be submitted from February to May of every year, please follow this link in order to find out more.
In addition, and in order to further strengthen entrepreneurships, we have collaboratively designed a series of free webinars with our partners, aimed at entrepreneurs, students, organizations and everyone who is interested on learning about resilient entrepreneurships.
We are part of an intersectoral collaboration platform of more than 30 thousand alliances through our global network, facilitating leadership, application of models and connectivity between academia, entrepreneurs, companies, NGOs, multilaterals, and community partners, with the objective of fulfilling the UN 2030 Agenda. We are active members in networks such as UN Global Compact, ARISE, RedEAmérica, and Red SumaRSE. UN Global Compact facilitates action for social progress, ARISE aims to increase resilience, RedEAmérica promotes sustainable communities, and SumaRSE executes joint high-impact initiatives at the local level.
