A concrete maker helps put roofs over more people’s heads in Latin America.

Cemex, one of the world’s largest suppliers of ­cement, concrete, and ­aggregates, has gone to great lengths to foster sustainable building practices in Latin America. Its program, dubbed “Growing,” has reached 3 million people. In Mexico alone, an estimated 6.7% of the homes repaired in the last 20 years have benefited from Cemex’s green building push.

“Growing” is about more than altruism: It also builds a market for the company’s products. One element of the program provides Cemex materials for houses and home improvement to families earning less than $3 a day. Households with slightly higher salaries can obtain loans to finance similar purchases. And other Cemex programs train would-be contractors (and potential future customers) in construction and entrepreneurship.

Cemex has also been tackling one of the region’s endemic problems: unsafe stoves. ­Cemex’s Clean Cookstoves are concrete stoves that have been installed to replace dangerous and open stoves in over 80,000 households in Latin America.