Victor Treviño has served as FEMSA’s Director of Energy and Sustainability since 2010. Today, his role is all-encompassing: “FEMSA is a large organization with a number of different business units. The corporate office has responsibility for sustainability in all of them. We’re in charge of establishing the strategy, making sure we have the proper governance principles, setting targets and so on.” 

ESG is increasingly taken as a shortcut for sustainability. What definitions does FEMSA use? “ESG means Environmental Social and Governance, whereas sustainability is about ensuring we can operate today and continue to grow and operate in the future.” 

It’s a form of conscious capitalism: “We believe that a company’s purpose should be to create wealth not only for shareholders, but for all stakeholders.”  

Material meaning 

The sustainability domain seems boundless. Choices must be made. But how? A materiality analysis involves identifying and prioritizing the ESG issues that matter. It is even a requirement for many sustainability reporting standards and frameworks. FEMSA conducted one in each of its business units, merging the output with the major global priorities. This included aligning the organization with the UN Global Compact and Sustainable Development Goals.  

It is a question of gaining a comprehensive understanding across interest groups, says Mr. Treviño. “We are very aware of the priority topics. For example, our investors rely on many of the ESG ratings and evaluations throughout the world, like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the Morgan Stanley Index, the FTSE4Good Index in London.” 

“So, we understand what is important for industries, for the stakeholders of each of our different business units.” The analysis also embraces the perspectives of FEMSA’s consumers, community, suppliers, and employees. “We put all of that together and define our priority topics, in which we can make a bigger difference.” 

Leading change from the top 

To move from boardroom PowerPoint to frontline action, an organization’s sustainability efforts depend upon culture. As the stewards of a 350,000-strong workforce, how has FEMSA’s leadership made the link? For Mr. Treviño, top management must ensure the organization understands sustainability as an integral part of business. “To convey that it starts top down, with our Board, C-suite and CEO.” 

“It’s part of our FEMSA Forward strategy — defining what we expect of the business. How do we get there? We’ve defined three ‘how’s’; one is rooted in sustainability. So, sustainability is not only the responsibility of the sustainability department, but it is rooted and incorporated into all the areas of the company. Strategic planning, purchasing, operations, maintenance and the commercial side must all look at their activities and responsibilities through a sustainability lens.”  

With the areas of operational effectiveness pinpointed, sustainability outcomes rest upon good communication, he says. Technicity must be translated into humanity, “conveying the message to all the areas of the organization… to transform some things that are maybe complex and technical into something much more understandable and relatable.” 

But beyond the task of a small band of project-pushers, sustainability must be a systemic, mass movement, a collaborative effort: “Many years ago the topic of sustainability was really only taken care of by the sustainability area. And it was a small area. And now, even though that area still has a small headcount, it has many ambassadors and allies. And they are all over the organization. So, I think that mindset is very important, and that’s ‘rooted sustainability’. Everybody must make sure they incorporate sustainability into their day-to-day operations, as well as long-range planning.” 

A revolutionary story 

During the twenty-three years of his tenure, what shift in mindset has Mr. Treviño seen at FEMSA? He considers himself fortunate to work in a company for which sustainability is not just an aspiration, but a historical fact. Its pioneering philanthropy even influenced Mexico’s social policy. 

Not so much a shift, as a starting point, then. “Since its foundation in 1890 the company’s leadership has always recognized the importance of not only creating economic value, but also social value. For example, it started taking care of employee wellbeing even before there was a government social security institute. And I understand that what is now the social security institute in Mexico was created to model what the company had done.  

See the full article for the history of sustainability at FEMSA going back to 1911, and how the organization is continuing its social engagement through its forward-looking programs. 

Geographical spread 

During the Mexican Revolution in 1914, the company’s early owners faced the dilemma to shut up shop or continue to serve their community. Since then, matters have become even more complex. Today, FEMSA operates in 18 countries with very different cultures, regulatory frameworks, challenges and opportunities.  

Continuing to drive FEMSA’s sustainability goals within such diverse locations demands ongoing analysis and perspective, says Mr. Treviño: “It’s very different working on, for example, renewable energy here, and in Argentina or Brazil, Switzerland or Germany… that’s why our corporate goals are not limited to a certain geography.” 

He returns to a primary concern — the sheer size of FEMSA’s workforce and the demands of aligning all its variables around sustainability targets: culture, behaviors, decision-making and internal processes.  

Unsurprisingly, digital has a role to play, together with in-person contact. “We have strategies for communicating and promoting these ideas. In fact, next week we have our annual sustainability summit. About 100 people will be personally attending, but we’ll also have 600 to 700 people from our business units connected online. So, it’s a hybrid event where we share a lot of information about the strategy, what we’re doing, what we expect from the business units, our targets… We try to be very transparent, we have to be very accountable in reporting how we’re doing, where we’re having difficulties in making progress, and what we’re going to do to reach the goals.” 

Given all of this, how does it feel to work for FEMSA? In its organizational climate survey conducted during 2021 and 2022, the group measured several key indicators. All scored between 85 and 91%. If sustainability rests in the hands of people as Mr. Treviño states, FEMSA’s success looks built to last.