Sustainability

In 2013, we advanced with the consolidation and integration of our comprehensive long-term sustainability strategy into our company’s and our business units’ key processes, including overall planning and day-to-day decision-making criteria. Focused on three governing pillars—Our People, Our Planet, and Our Community—our vision is to ensure the sustainability of our business by Positively Transforming our Communities through the simultaneous creation of economic, social, and environmental value.

To this end, we undertook a number of important steps to implement our strategy. We worked together—across business units and functions—to define clear, long-term objectives for each of our nine action areas; create a sustainability glossary, comprised of operational definitions for our business units to provide a common understanding of all concepts; and establish strategic metrics, baselines, and goals with which to measure the performance and impact of our operations and programs. We also initiated the development of guidelines to monitor, verify, report, and update our objectives, goals, and programs, and prepared strategic lines of action that will support our action plans.

Underscoring our firm commitment to sustainability, Coca-Cola FEMSA was one of 81 companies recently selected to join the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index, as well as one of only four companies from Mexico. Additionally, the Carbon Disclosure Project Global 500 ranked FEMSA the highest scoring Mexican company for its disclosure of carbon emissions strategies and data.

Exemplary Sustainability Initiative

Among our many initiatives, we supported the second generation and launched the third generation of Youth with Value, a signature program through which we encourage young people from 14 to 24 years of age to develop and lead their own social entrepreneurship projects, becoming agents of change in their communities. In alliance with Ashoka, the largest network of social entrepreneurs worldwide, we worked with approximately 1,000 young social entrepreneurs to carry out 250 projects that address a variety of social needs—from the production and sale of ethnic arts and crafts to services supporting vulnerable communities to innovative environmental technologies. Since 2011, we have helped more than 1,400 young people in Mexico to design and develop approximately 340 projects in the states of Nuevo León, Michoacán, and Veracruz. At the end of 2013, we signed a commitment as part of the Clinton Global Initiative to support 520 social entrepreneurship projects over the next four years.

FEMSA Foundation is an independent organization aligned with FEMSA’s sustainability strategy. As the company’s instrument for social investment, we are committed to the creation of long-term value for the communities where we operate. To ensure the long-term success of our initiatives, we join forces with stakeholders from different sectors to support projects and create regional platforms.

Sustainable Development of Water Resources

In 2013, the Water Center for Latin America and the Caribbean—created by FEMSA Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Tecnológico de Monterrey—continued to build the capabilities of water professionals, one of the greatest opportunities for water stewardship throughout Latin America. With renewed economic support from IDB, the Center will expand its capability to provide onsite and online training. Over the past five years, the Center has offered specialized courses to over 1,700 directors and technical personnel of the water community.

In partnership with Coca-Cola Latin America and the Millennium Water Alliance, the Foundation launched the Water Links program. This three-year program aims to help approximately 110,000 people in marginalized communities across five countries to gain access to safe water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education. Ultimately, Water Links builds sustainable, healthy long-term communities where children can spend more time in school and adults have more time to work and participate as productive members of their community.

In 2011, we joined The Nature Conservancy, IDB, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to create the Latin American Water Funds Partnership. Over five years, the Partnership plans to implement at least 32 Water Funds throughout Latin America with seed investments of over US$27 million. Revenue from these investments preserves key watersheds upstream that filter and regulate the water supply of some of the most important cities in the region.

Today, the Partnership has launched 17 Water Funds, benefiting 17 cities in six countries. In 2013, the Partnership brought together more than 50 public, private, and civil society organizations to establish the Monterrey Metropolitan Water Fund in the state of Nuevo León, Mexico, to preserve the San Juan River watershed—which serves over 3.7 million habitants of this metropolitan area. The Fund will help mitigate flooding, improve water infiltration, raise awareness of water conservation, and work alongside government to attract resources to protect the watershed.

Quality of Life

In 2013, the Quality of Life area of FEMSA Foundation introduced pilot nutritional education initiatives for school children and mothers in disadvantaged communities in Mexico and Nicaragua. Among them, the Foundation developed the Campaign of Colors program in Nicaragua to promote nutritional education for underprivileged school children in Managua. Accomplished in collaboration with Coca-Cola FEMSA and the American Nicaraguan Foundation, the program adds a nutritional learning component to One Plate, One Smile, a project that has given food to school children in rural Nicaragua for eight years. Additionally, the Foundation launched new research projects through the Nutrigenomics Research Chair. During 2013, the Chair pursued 10 ongoing projects and received 25 prizes for its work.