CEO Message
Message from Our Chair and CEO, Matthijs Glastra
We can finally see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel and the future looks bright. After a challenging second year adapting to new ways of working brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, I think I can speak for all of us at Novanta that we are ready to turn the page. I remain incredibly impressed with how the Novanta team stuck together, continued innovating, and welcomed new coworkers into our family, all while working remotely and socially distanced.
This year reminded me what an incredible team can achieve when adequately set up for success. The investments we have made over the past years—to build The Novanta Way, our culture which is based on collaboration, inclusion and trust, and to refine the Novanta Growth System, our toolkit and set of practices to accelerate innovation—have paid dividends for the last two years. They have been the glue that kept us motivated and mobilized behind our vision: to deliver innovations that matter.
We know that investing in our team is an ongoing journey. In 2021, we hired our first Vice President of Leadership Development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and began our DEI journey. We believe that building diverse teams and making those teams feel welcomed, supported, and empowered is the gateway to building a Novanta that is ready for the future.
Similarly, in 2021 we made strides toward weaving an ethos of sustainability throughout our organization. Caring for our people and the planet is not just the right thing to do, it’s also an opportunity for us to build the innovations of the future. We now measure and disclose our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions and consider sustainability criteria during our product design phase in order to continuously become more efficient and streamline our operations.
We invite you to read about our progress this past year on environmental, social and governance initiatives. Below are some of the highlights from 2021:
We set a goal of having net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
We are disclosing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions for the first time.
We hired our first Vice President of Leadership Development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
We set new DEI targets.
We have achieved ISO 9001 certification for all of our production facilities and continue to make progress on achieving ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO 13485 certifications for all relevant facilities.
We have published our 2021 ESG Report in line with two leading global standards—SASB and TCFD. We recognize the impact of our footprint and the role we play in facilitating meaningful change to benefit the people and the places affected by our operations. As we mature on our ESG journey, we look forward to setting and meeting increasingly ambitious targets and sharing our progress with you. We hope you’ll join us for the ride.
