The Cemex way to the future
Cemex is one of the biggest cement producers worldwide, with leading positions in cement, aggregates and ready-mix. ICR caught up with CEO Fernando A González for a wide-ranging discussion covering everything from the impact of the pandemic, Cemex’s strategic priorities and targets, decarbonisation and the future of the cement industry.
“With current, available and proven technologies, processes and
materials, we can continue reducing CO2 in our operations
by up to 40 per cent by 2030, using the 1990 baseline.”
Fernando A González, CEO, Cemex
ICR: The world has lived through an incredible period since 2020. Turning first to the recent past and the pandemic, how did this impact Cemex?
Fernando González (FG): There are so many things that we can comment on, so many interesting times that we have gone through and continue going through. I remember in the 2Q20 when we started understanding that there was a virus causing a pandemic with potentially disastrous scenarios or impacts, we really thought that we were going to be having a very material disruption. And because of that, we took many bold actions in a very short period of time. We took as much cash as possible just to be sure that we could navigate a few months of disruption, stopping almost all capex. In the end, the construction industry as a whole was not impacted as much as other industries, due to a combination of it being a better scenario than the one we imagined, and the very bold actions that were taken. Although there was a sizeable impact on our industry, it was contained to four months.
