Spectra Energy Named to 2012 World's Most Ethical Companies List

HOUSTON, March 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Spectra Energy Corp (NYSE: SE) has been named to the Ethisphere Institute's 2012 World's Most Ethical Companies list. This year's list highlights a record 145 organizations worldwide that demonstrated real and sustained leadership in promoting ethical business standards as integral to the companies' business practices and license to operate, and that exceed legal minimums for compliance and introduce innovative ideas that benefit the public and compel competitors to follow suit. New this year to the list, Spectra Energy is one of only four energy companies in the natural gas sector designated with the honor.

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"We're honored to be named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. As a company, we understand a strong ethics and compliance program and corporate citizenship are integral components to a successful business model, and we continue to scrutinize our business standards and practices to keep up with an ever-changing regulatory environment," said Greg Ebel, president and chief executive officer, Spectra Energy Corp. "This is tangible recognition of the concerted efforts of our employees, who work hard every day to conduct business in a highly ethical, transparent and sustainable manner."

Ethisphere Institute, an international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability, conducted in-depth research and a multi-step analysis of companies in more than 100 countries and 36 industries. Nearly 3,000 companies were nominated, or nominated themselves, for consideration this year. Ethisphere's proprietary rating system, which it calls the Ethics Quotient, is based on a series of multiple-choice questions in a survey that is designed to capture a company's performance in an objective and standardized way. The methodology includes reviewing codes of ethics, litigation and regulatory infraction histories; evaluating the investment in innovation and sustainable business practices; looking at activities designed to improve corporate citizenship; and studying nominations from senior executives, industry peers, suppliers and customers. Once the pool is culled down to a few hundred, Ethisphere cross-checks it against leading governance lists, including GovernanceMetricsInternational and FTSE4Good.

Read about the methodology and view the complete list of the 2012 World's Most Ethical Companies at www.ethisphere.com/wme.

Spectra Energy Corp (NYSE: SE), a FORTUNE 500 company, is one of North America's premier natural gas infrastructure companies serving three key links in the natural gas value chain: gathering and processing, transmission and storage, and distribution. For more than a century, Spectra Energy and its predecessor companies have developed critically important pipelines and related infrastructure connecting natural gas supply sources to premium markets. Based in Houston, Texas, the company's operations in the United States and Canada include more than 19,000 miles of transmission pipeline, over 305 billion cubic feet of storage, as well as natural gas gathering and processing, natural gas liquids operations and local distribution assets. The company also has a 50 percent ownership in DCP Midstream, one of the largest natural gas gatherers and processors in the United States. Spectra Energy is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indexes and the U.S. S&P 500 Carbon Disclosure Project's Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. For more information, visit www.spectraenergy.com.

The research-based Ethisphere® Institute is a leading international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability. Ethisphere Magazine, which publishes the globally recognized World's Most Ethical Companies Ranking™, is the quarterly publication of the Institute. Ethisphere provides the only third-party verifications of compliance programs and ethical cultures that include: Ethics Inside® Certification, Compliance Leader Verification™ and Anti-Corruption Program Verification™. The Institute's premier membership group, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance™, is a business ethics forum that includes more than 100 leading corporations, universities and institutions that collectively leverage their experience, expertise and innovative ways to address emerging compliance challenges. More information on the Ethisphere Institute, including ranking projects and membership, can be found at http://www.ethisphere.com.

SOURCE Spectra Energy Corp