Sac-Tun Leads by Example in Social and Environmental Sustainability

Supporting Major Economic Development and Leading by Example in Social and Environmental Sustainability

Vulcan Material Company’s Mexico operation, Sac-Tun, near Playa del Carmen in the State of Quintana Roo, is the company’s largest quarry and employs more people (450) than any of Vulcan’s other quarrying operations.  Sac-Tun is the largest non-tourism employer in Quintana Roo.  Our employees, who come from all parts of Mexico, earn more than three times the minimum wage paid in Quintana Roo and are covered by comprehensive health, retirement and other employee benefit plans.  

Sac-Tun (formerly known as “CALICA”) has received Mexico’s top award for outstanding environmental performance, the “Clean Industries” certificate, from the federal government’s environmental enforcement agency, PROFEPA, six times over the last 18 years, most recently in 2017.  Sac-Tun’s safety performance is also at world-class level, with employees logging over 4.5 million hours without a lost-time injury and having an injury rate of only 0.46 per 200,000 employee hours worked. 

Sac-Tun produces construction aggregates shipped to major U.S. Gulf Coast markets that do not have large quantities of quality indigenous stone.  The site includes the largest deep-water harbor in the Yucatán Peninsula, developed by Vulcan in the mid-1980s and including private and public shipping and ferrying terminals.  Vulcan’s shipping company, Vulica, operates three Panamax-class self-unloading vessels, with capacities of 68,000 tons each, which transport construction materials to growing Gulf Coast markets. These vessels operate with the advanced Dupon’s Marine Scrubber system, a state-of-the-art technology for minimizing air and marine pollution (they consume an estimated 40% less bunker sea fuel) and thus comply with regulations of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on CO2 emissions, ballast and waste water, and particulate matter..  Sac-Tun is also a major supplier of infrastructure materials widely used in the Mayan Riviera, helping fuel the important growth that has occurred in the region over the last three and a half decades.

Throughout this period, Sac-Tun has been a responsible member of the community, setting best practices in safety, environmental management, economic development, infrastructure, and social impact.  It has been a driving force behind the local economy and infrastructure, in the construction of roads and bridges, the electricity grid, and access to new sources of fresh water.  

Our aggregates have been used in the construction of the majority of local highways and freeways, the Cancun and Cozumel airports, as well as the numerous hotels that form the backbone or the tourism industry in the region.  The Punta Venado Maritime Terminal built by the company in the late 1980s offers services to ferries that transport an average of 2.7 million passengers every year, in addition to transporting 80 million tons of food and supplies over the past two decades, helping inject millions of dollars into the local and regional economy.  In 1989, the company founded Instituto Playa del Carmen de La Salle, the first bilingual school in the Mayan Riviera, which currently educates more than 540 students from pre-school through the secondary grades each year.  The company also runs a highly acclaimed annual Teachers’ Seminar which provides continuing learning and accreditation for teachers who attend from all parts of Mexico.  Since its inception the Teachers’ Seminar has benefited more than 3,600 certified teachers reaching more than 200,000 students.