Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the time, and thanks for the opportunity to speak to you. I commend you for learning more about this area. It's a very important part of our business.
I understand that you had a number of sessions this year, and from them I think you should be in a position to agree that the capability and diversity of aboriginal businesses is quite outstanding and that they in a position to grow going forward.
In 2017, I'm proud to say that Suncor spent $521 million on goods and services from 197 aboriginal businesses and suppliers. This brings us over the $4-billion mark since we started in 1999. We're aiming to build on these successful relationships and see a lot of growth opportunity going forward. We want to apply what we've learned more consistently in our economic envelope and broaden it across business lines so that more aboriginal entrepreneurs and communities have the opportunity to participate in and benefit from our operations.
I thought I'd share with you six lessons that we've learned and applied that enable us to be successful in this area.
First, we ingrain aboriginal commerce in our culture. The most important aspect of continuously being able to seek to develop these opportunities is to embed this attitude within our staff and our vendor community. We do this by ensuring that our staff have aboriginal awareness training as a baseline. In my group of approximately 792 people, 75% of the organization has completed basic web training on this. We expect to get close to 100% by the end of the first quarter. Many more employees have participated in advanced training and learning opportunities and associated themselves with aboriginal groups. We're trying to incorporate this understanding so it's part of our mindset and comes instinctually in what we do. In many ways, it's very similar to the safety journey that we've ingrained in our staff at our contractor program.
We've developed processes, policies, and metrics. We hold ourselves accountable. We measure ourselves. This is supported by governance structure where both Ginny and I sit on Suncor's Aboriginal Relations Vice-President Committee. We believe that leading from the top is important. We have complementary governance structures in other areas of our organization. Mel Benson, from Beaver Lake Cree Nation, has been on our Suncor board of directors since 2000.
The second thing we do is to develop joint business development plans. We have a long history of working with aboriginal suppliers, particularly Wood Buffalo. We're working with some communities in Wood Buffalo to generate these joint business development plans, which aren't short-term focused. They can look well into the future. We co-create these plans, and they provide structure for how we work together and collectively focus on the same objectives. These annual work plans have helped aboriginal communities to direct their efforts where there is a possibility to increase their business and help Suncor to track our suppliers' capabilities and to identify new opportunities.
Together, we're building increased capacity. I can't express enough how important it is to recognize that this requires a long-term investment, a lot of effort, and investment in relationships. We grow together with patience and hard work in looking for opportunity, giving opportunity and accepting it; in listening and discussing; in getting creative and working together to navigate through growing pains; and in keeping communication open. It's much more than simply posting opportunities on Merx and hoping for good things to come.
The third thing that we do is to diversify aboriginal procurement. Internally, we're working with each of our supply chain categories and looking for opportunities where there's a natural fit for aboriginal entrepreneurs and communities to participate. We're finding ways to broaden and diversify the scope of our overall spending available to these aboriginal groups. We're working directly with them to select the businesses to help build their capabilities.
We're also investing resources to develop our business line. Just recently, as an example, we added new resources to take a look at what we could do with our downstream operations. Specifically, we're investing in people to look at how we can marry up in our refining operations contracted work and aboriginal opportunities there. I think Suncor will be spending money in this area in a very big way going forward. We always look at how we can support each other in launching a business that can grow and mature over time. It's an ongoing investment by both parties.
The next new initiative is a sustainable supply chain. We work with our contractors and our suppliers, who provide a lot of our commercial work, to promote shared values, such as increasing aboriginal participation in both the aboriginal and non-aboriginal companies. We take into account their aboriginal strategies when evaluating each contract. When they make a bid about their commitment to the community, and particularly to the aboriginal groups, that measure is weighted.
I've recently begun a new review of our sustainable supply chain. We believe there's a lot of opportunity here. It talks about community, it talks about the economy, and it talks about investment in the environment.
Frankly, some businesses might be majority aboriginal-owned in name, but have little role for aboriginal people, yet some non-aboriginal companies can be very good at employing aboriginal groups and getting them started and in developing strong relationships with these communities. It is complex and something that we will be taking a closer look at. We work with aboriginal organizations, the NAABA and the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, CCAB. We're very well connected, we sponsor events, we attend and we help them.
CCAB runs a certification standard for progressive aboriginal relations, which confirms corporate performance in this area. I'm happy to announce that last fall Suncor received gold-level certification, the highest level recognition, which we're very proud of. Our chief operating officer, Mark Little, has just agreed to be an inaugural co-chair procurement champion with CCAB.
Last but not least, we work with industry associations, such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Mining Association of Canada, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. We try to influence these people to do the right thing.
In conclusion, I can tell you that aboriginal businesses are a major opportunity across the country, for us, for you, and for other companies. They provide a broad diversity of products and services, excellent quality, with very good pricing, efficiency, and safety records. There is no way that Suncor would be as successful as we are today without these crucial business relationships. We know they'll be important going forward. Suncor continues on its journey to fully utilize aboriginal businesses and is pleased that this committee is looking into the procurement strategy as it relates to this area. I'm excited not only for the past accomplishments that we've had, but also the promise of tomorrow. Our $520 million last year is going to grow significantly in the years ahead.
We now look forward to answer any questions you might have of us.