In a supermarket, sustainability actions are usually seen in very concrete ways: solar panels on the roofs, energy-efficient lighting, water-saving systems, delivery trucks gradually leaving fossil fuels behind, or recycling stations where cardboard, plastic, and glass find a path away from the landfill.
All of that adds up and matters. However, that isn’t necessarily where the biggest part of a company’s environmental footprint lies.
This became evident in Auto Mercado’s 2025 carbon footprint measurement. The result directed their focus far beyond their store premises: direct emissions accounted for a mere 5.9% of the total footprint.
The remaining 94.1% was indirect and primarily tied to its supply chain and the products placed on its shelves.
The greatest weight lies, above all, in food products. Dairy products alone represented 75% of those indirect emissions in 2025.
These figures prompted them to look beyond their own internal operations. A footprint is also built on a farm, in a processing plant, along the route a product takes, and through the decisions made by every supplier before an item reaches a shelf.
And the logic does not end there. It also appears in the conditions a supplier must meet, in the risk a bank decides to finance, in the criteria a real estate developer uses to design a project, or even in the indicators that reach a board of directors.
This same pattern repeats when reviewing 13 corporate reports featuring data from 2025: sustainability is moving out of the isolated realm of standalone programs and embedding itself into much more central business decisions. While not all organizations are at the same stage, credit, suppliers, risks, talent, and governance are appearing more frequently in these executive conversations.
And that is where the hard part begins: taking action, measuring what was done, and demonstrating what actually changed are three entirely different challenges.
Environment is the Spearhead, But It Is No Longer Alone
For years, a large portion of the business conversation around sustainability entered through a well-known door: water, electricity, waste, emissions, recycling, or volunteering. Those topics haven’t disappeared. They continue to occupy dozens of pages in corporate reports and, depending on the industry, can represent a fundamental part of a company’s impact.
What has changed is the scale of the conversation.
A review of sustainability reports across Costa Rican organizations—including Portafolio Inmobiliario, Grupo Purdy, Dos Pinos, Grupo Montecristo, BAC, Banco Nacional, Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), Florex, Walmart Mexico and Central America, Coca-Cola FEMSA, CMI Capital, Auto Mercado, and Café Britt—reveals a clear trend:
- Dos Pinos structures its roadmap around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions, connecting them with growth, dairy farms, nutrition, inclusion, suppliers, and regional consolidation.
- Café Britt incorporates sourcing, climate, talent, supply chain management, and corporate governance.
- BAC integrates sustainable finance, well-being, communities, ethical conduct, climate, and nature.
Sustainability still talks about the environment—only now, the conversation reaches much further.
A Trajectory Now Seeking Better Measurement
In some companies, this journey began long before terms like ESG or climate disclosure entered corporate vernacular.
Café Britt traces part of that history back to the late 1980s. The company notes that it began working with organic coffee production in 1989 and, two years later, became the first company in the country to commercialize certified roasted organic coffee.
That product still represents a relatively small portion of its total purchases: between 2020 and 2025, green organic coffee accounted for an average of 2% of total acquisitions. However, its 2025 report demonstrates that sustainability management now operates in a far broader territory than a single specialty line.
During 2025, Britt reported that 100% of its critical suppliers were evaluated against environmental criteria. The company’s roadmap toward 2027 includes strengthening sustainability governance, improving risk and opportunity identification, and deepening a metrics system that reaches the Executive Committee to enable more informed decision-making.
When It Ceases to Be a Separate Strategy
In 2017, when Banco Nacional (BN) began formally structuring these areas, sustainability and core business operations still occupied separate spaces. There was one strategy for banking and another for managing sustainability. Almost a decade later, Silvia Chaves, Director of Brand Experience, Corporate Relations, and Sustainability at BN, asserts that this divide no longer makes sense.
Today, the discussion touches on core banking questions: who receives loans, what risks are accepted, where capital is invested, what products are designed, and what consequences those decisions carry.
“I like to say that at Banco Nacional, sustainability doesn’t accompany the strategy: the strategy is sustainable,” explained Chaves.
BAC demonstrates another side of this shift. Its sustainable corporate credit portfolio reached $427 million in 2025, a 39% growth compared to the previous year. Among micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the green and sustainable credit portfolio exceeded $90 million.
In banking, the direct environmental impact of a branch office might lie in its energy consumption; however, the money issued from that branch ends up funding homes, vehicles, industries, commercial ventures, and farms that carry their own respective footprints.
Measuring Also Highlights Opportunities for Improvement
Grupo Purdy decided to put a figure on its own level of sustainability maturity. The exercise yielded a score of 2.9 out of 5 in 2025—a measurement that highlights both progress achieved and areas that still require strengthening.
The score placed the organization at an intermediate level, identifying a need to connect sustainability more deeply with financial performance, enhance supplier management, formalize climate risk management, and develop better impact metrics.
“It was not about assigning goals from a central sustainability office, but rather having each department find its own connection to the strategy,” explained Ana María Sequeira, Director of Corporate Relations and Sustainability at Grupo Purdy.
Double Materiality: Analysis in Two Directions
Portafolio Inmobiliario incorporated a key strategy in 2025: double materiality.
This concept requires analyzing impact in two directions:
- Inside-Out: The impact the company generates on the environment and society.
- Outside-In: How external environmental and social factors circle back and become risks or opportunities for the company itself.
“Double materiality allows us to make better decisions because it simultaneously analyzes the impact the company generates on its surroundings and the impact that environment can have on the company,” explained Alfredo Volio, Executive Director of Portafolio Inmobiliario.
The real estate developer structured its 2025–2030 strategy around ten material topics, including climate action, eco-efficiency, biodiversity, economic performance, talent, communities, urban design, corporate governance, and innovation.
Impact Beyond Internal Operations
Returning to the supermarket cart: understanding where a major portion of Auto Mercado’s impact lies requires looking past store aisles or internal operations.
Through the “Dejá huella en la biodiversidad” (Leave a Footprint on Biodiversity) program, Auto Mercado reported 5,146 hectares of supplier farms producing pineapple, banana, and coffee under biodiversity management plans, with 739 hectares dedicated strictly to conservation.
During 2025, Auto Mercado also evaluated 254 suppliers through inspections, microbiological and physicochemical analyses, file reviews, and audits covering good agricultural practices, maximum pesticide limits, and occupational safety.
Producers and Suppliers in the Same Equation
At Dos Pinos, those producing the primary raw material are not merely suppliers—the associated producers are also co-owners of the cooperative and participate in its governance.
By the end of 2025, 64.6% of production units were aligned with the comprehensive sustainable farm standard defined by Dos Pinos, with a target goal to reach 95%.
Marina Rodríguez, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Relations at Dos Pinos, explained that “the main challenge is supporting the transformation of a broad and diverse production base.” The cooperative works in Costa Rica with 1,285 associated producers and 1,460 active farms, of which 93% are small and medium-sized, requiring tailored strategies to support each farm’s individual journey.
