A Q&A With Nannette Ho-Covernton, Sustainability Leader at Spartan Controls

Originally published in Enbridge's 2022 Sustainability Report

Can you tell us a little about the history of sustainability at Spartan Controls?

Several of our sustainability commitments have roots that span Spartan’s six-decade history. In our first fixed Calgary facility, our founders implemented a specific architectural design aimed at conserving energy and promoting employee interaction by guiding movement throughout the building. Spartan Controls is wholly employee-owned, which builds strong relationships between the company and the people who work here. However, as far as a recognized sustainability program, we’ve been primarily active on the environmental dimension since 1990s.

What’s been the focus of your sustainability program in recent years?

Our sustainability framework has six key pillars: People; Well-Being; Community; Industry & Education; Innovation; and Environment. We have strong commitments in each of these areas, but some are more mature than others. Our safety program (part of the Well-Being pillar) is very well-established and our safety record is something we’ve taken pride in for a long time. At the other end of the spectrum, we’re in the initial stage of gathering comprehensive data about diversity in our supply chain. We’re in the process of surveying our suppliers and analyzing the data.

How has Enbridge’s sustainability program, which includes goals related to its supply chain, shaped Spartan Controls’ practices?

As a supplier, we always do our best to respond to our customers’ needs across the board. Whether it’s in sustainability, quality or service, meeting our customers’ expectations and being aligned with them is at the heart of our business. When our major customers’ sustainability reports come out, we spend plenty of time with them to make sure that our perspectives on materiality are staying aligned—that we understand their projects, their core initiatives, any innovations they’re pursuing.

This year, we submitted information through the EcoVadis platform in order to help Enbridge gain insight into their Scope 3 emissions as well as other issues, such as labor and ethics. We were happy to do this both because we value Enbridge as a customer and also because it was a learning opportunity for us in our own sustainability program.

What was most useful about going through that process? 

We’re in the process of building a more comprehensive picture of our emissions. We’ve been developing and enabling technology to reduce emissions for many years; to date, we’ve helped industry abate more than 20 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent with the products and services we provide—in areas ranging from fuel management to advanced process controls. Until recently, we didn’t have a comprehensive inventory as a baseline. In fall 2022, we published our Scope 1 emissions for the first time, and we’re working on Scope 2. Like Enbridge, we’re beginning to survey our suppliers to understand our Scope 3 emissions. It is interesting to have a window into Enbridge’s process by participating in it.

What stands out for you about working with Enbridge on shared sustainability goals? 

Enbridge is highly collaborative, which makes a huge difference. They’re very willing to engage on the substance of the issues—they don’t just send out surveys and wait. We have real conversations with members of their supply chain and sustainability team about what they’re trying to learn and why. It’s beneficial to have the kind of relationship where we can really engage around the goals we’re trying to achieve, and how we each fit into each other’s work. Generally speaking, it’s nice to be collaborative—but it also makes a big difference in terms of the impact we can achieve together. There are so many companies working on the same questions and challenges.

The more we can work together and share what we’re learning, the faster we can move the dial on our sustainability goals. 

Nannette Ho-Covernton, 
Sustainability Leader

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