Sphera leads effort to track chemicals and protect workers, offerings lesson to Canadian EHS professionals
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA are overhauling how they track and dispose of hazardous materials, in a move experts say offers lessons for Canadian EHS and ESG leaders as space and defense operations grow more complex.
Modernizing hazardous materials oversight across defense and space
Sphera, a Chicago‑based operational risk and ESG software provider, has secured a five‑year, sole‑source contract from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to deliver, sustain and modernize the U.S. federal government’s Hazardous Materials Management System (HMMS). The platform underpins hazardous materials and waste management across the DoD and associated agencies, and follows NASA’s decision to adopt HMMS as its agency‑wide standard for hazardous materials management.
For EHS professionals, the scale of the problem is striking. Scott Woestman, group vice‑president for public sector at Sphera, says the U.S. government is dealing with thousands of hazardous substances in sensitive environments, from military installations to space facilities.
“There are literally 1,600 different chemicals that the government was working with in these particular scenarios,” he explains. “So how do we get those disposed of properly at the end of the day and keep workers safe?”
HMMS is designed to support that full lifecycle, from chemical intake and approval, through storage, use and transport, to hazardous waste disposition. NASA’s deployment covers sites such as Goddard, Wallops and Armstrong, with the system being extended across the agency to close gaps in lifecycle management, improve waste‑handling efficiency and minimize environmental impact.
Under the new DLA agreement, Sphera is tasked with strengthening chemical lifecycle management, improving data integrity and enhancing enterprise visibility across U.S. defense and aerospace operations worldwide.
Linking hazardous materials governance to Artemis II
For Canadians, the relevance goes beyond watching U.S. federal procurement. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are deeply intertwined in human spaceflight and exploration programs. As NASA standardizes its hazardous materials practices on a single digital platform, the agencies’ joint missions and shared facilities are likely to reflect those tighter controls, enhanced transparency and more robust ESG reporting expectations.
The timing is significant. As NASA’s Artemis II mission sees Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen among the crew orbiting the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, Canada is more tightly integrated than ever into U.S.‑led deep‑space operations. Those missions depend on the same kind of rigorous hazardous materials governance now being standardized through HMMS—from propellants and specialty chemicals to waste streams that must be tracked and managed across multiple agencies and international partners.
Paul Marushka, Sphera’s CEO and president, frames the DLA and NASA work as a vote of confidence in technology‑enabled hazardous materials governance. He characterizes the partnership with NASA as being about more than software alone, emphasizing the goals of protecting the workforce, safeguarding mission capabilities and ensuring compliance in some of the most demanding operational environments in the world.
Breaking down data and organizational silos
Inside the program, Woestman says the biggest obstacles have not only been technical, but organizational.
“From our perspective, really it becomes a data silo problem,” he notes. “There are so many silos of different data, both from suppliers [and] how we’re integrating those systems internally within the government… The ability to take an operational intelligence platform like Sphera… [and] really reduce those silos, improve communication and collaboration, and most importantly, visibility into where we’re seeing risk, that really provides one view.”
For health and safety leaders wrestling with similar fragmentation, Woestman’s message is to pair governance with technology, including artificial intelligence, rather than view it as a threat.
“Do not be afraid of technology and AI. Embrace it,” he says. “It’s really looking at the data… Removing data silos, data collection, data aggregation, etc. And bringing them into a system with the use of artificial intelligence to really build models for success… where we’re seeing a reduction of risk [and] reduction of waste in terms of chemical intelligence.”
That mindset extends to culture change inside large institutions. Woestman describes early resistance from teams protective of “their” data, and the need to demonstrate tangible safety and waste‑reduction benefits.
“It’s really demonstrable success,” he says. “How do we make the best use of their data, make them heroes, and allow them to share that across departments…to keep people safe.”
Implications for Canadian EHS and ESG leaders
For Canadian organizations, whether in aerospace, defense, energy or heavy industry, the U.S. federal experience underscores three converging priorities: treat hazardous materials data as strategic infrastructure, break down organizational silos that obscure risk, and deploy advanced analytics and AI to prioritize the most hazardous substances and scenarios.
As cross‑border programs like NASA–CSA collaborations deepen, the bar for transparent, technology‑enabled hazardous waste management is likely to rise on both sides of the border. Canadian EHS and ESG leaders watching those missions will increasingly be expected to bring the same level of lifecycle visibility, worker protection and environmental stewardship to their own high‑risk operations.
This article is part of our Monthly Spotlight series, which in April focuses on environment, sustainability & ESG.
