The Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) has given building materials giant Cemex the 2020 Corporate Conservation Leadership Award honouring the company's biodiversity conservation efforts.
The Corporate Conservation Leadership Award is the most prestigious recognition presented annually by WHC. It signifies an exemplary corporate commitment to biodiversity and conservation education and meaningful alignments with global conservation objectives.
“We are privileged to receive the Corporate Conservation Leadership Award from WHC. This recognition is testimony to our successful efforts and fosters our commitment to continue embedding sustainability in every aspect of our operations,” said Vicente Saiso, Cemex’s director of sustainability. Saiso added: “To date, we have achieved certification for 30 programmes and community environmental initiatives in our operations around the world with the highest standards of environmental conservation and biodiversity restoration.
The WHC explained that Cemex had received Conservation Certification status for 12 programmes within this past certification cycle with a combined total of 15 qualifying projects. Projects within these programmes are aligned with a corporate commitment to biodiversity conservation themes such as awareness and engagement, formal learning, landscaping, and wetlands, and large-scale initiatives.
Cemex currently has 30 programmes certified by the WHC, located in 8 U.S. states, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Poland, Costa Rica, and Colombia.
WHC certified programs include the California State Wildlife Action Plan, the Friends of Verde River Cooperative Invasive Plant Management Plan, BirdLife International, and a multi-agency research initiative for the Georgia black bear population. The Strategy for the Conservation of Chihuahuan Desert Grasslands, Program of Action for the Conservation of mammals in El Carmen Nature Reserve, the Annual Plan of the National Ramsar Committee of the Dominican Republic, and Panama’s Alliance for a Million Hectares.
Cemex has earned most WHC environmental conservation certifications in Mexico and has the second most WHC-certified programs in the building materials industry. In 2016, WHC awarded Cemex another of its highest recognitions, the Gold Tier Program of the Year, for conservation efforts at the El Carmen Nature Reserve, the company’s main conservation project, recognizing Cemex’s biodiversity conservation efforts to protect this area of North America.
For 30 years, WHC has been promoting and certifying ecological stewardship action on corporate lands through partnerships and education. Since only 10-15% of the world’s land surface is protected, private lands provide an important opportunity for restoring and protecting biodiversity. As the only international conservation NGO focused exclusively on the private sector, WHC provides a framework for voluntary conservation action on a wide variety of corporate lands.
WHC’s corporate members represent some of the leading national and multinational corporations seeking to support sustainable ecosystems and the communities that surround them. These efforts have resulted in more than 1,000 certified programs across 47 states and 28 countries.
