Eco-Businesses
Businesses in eco-industrial park settings work together to share information, knowledge and resources to optimize resource efficiency as well as reduce environmental impacts. CoRDA aims to facilitate these types of opportunities among businesses located in not only the Debert Industrial Park, but also across the rest of Colchester County. Businesses, organizations, and citizens in this type of setting are guided by a common vision of integrating economic, social and environmental needs.
Kohler
In 2008, Peter Kohler Windows and Entrance Systems established a Green Team, which consists of members from management, supervision and production. The company recognized they were sending too much waste to local landfills. The goal of the company was to become green, reduce their carbon footprint, and reduce their impact on the environment by decreasing the amount of unnecessary waste being sent to landfills.
Kohler’s goal was to reduce waste generation being sent to the landfill by 75% before 2010. In 2007 967 tons was sent to the landfill, during 2008 842 tons was sent and in 2009 254 tons. This totaled an overall reduction of 74%. This is an outstanding accomplishment that each and every Kohler employee takes pride in. Going forward Peter Kohler Windows & Entrance Systems is committed to being Clearly Green and will continue to work towards waste reduction as well as reducing their carbon footprint.
In 2009 Peter Kohler Windows & Entrance Systems also announced its IDLE-FREE partnership with The Children’s Clean Air Network. The company plans to be a peer-leader with a proactive reduced-idling strategy, selling their 300+ employees and the broader public based on messages featuring children.
Kerr Controls
Kerr Controls Ltd, an HVAC Wholesale company, was founded in 1949. Kerr’s Head Office and Atlantic Canada Distribution Centre are both in the Truro Industrial Park. At the head office and branch, the NS Power Commercial Lighting Program provided a great business case for Kerr to recently switch from older generation fluorescent and metal halide lighting to new highly efficient fluorescent fixtures, in both the office and warehouse. Expected energy savings from reduced lighting load are estimated at about 40%.
Kerr’s Atlantic Canada Distribution Centre is a concrete tilt-up building built in 2005/06 to support Kerr’s expansion. High levels of wall and roof insulation (sandwiched polyiso foam, with no thermal breaks, R20 and R40 respectively), coupled with radiant in-floor heating (fired by two state-of-the art Viessmann boilers) result in heating efficiency that rivals certified Green Buildings. The building also utilizes high efficiency and motion sensor lighting.
Kerr continues to invest in its buildings across Atlantic Canada with a long-term vision of reduced energy footprint and sustainability.
Bastionhost is repurposing the 64,000 square foot underground “Diefenbunker”, transforming it and other hardened Cold War era military surplus buildings into Dataville: a system of green, 21st century world-class data centers and storage silos in the Debert Eco-Industrial Park.
Bastionhost offers a green alternative in an energy-intensive industry by utilizing existing infrastructure and natural systems in data center design and actively pursue technologies and practices that reduce its environmental footprint. Bastionhost and its clients benefit from geothermal cooling, free airside cooling, natural earth insulation, and heat recovery techniques by significantly reducing energy requirements and operating costs.
Bastionhost is a proud member of the GreenStar Network , a Canadian consortium of industry, universities and government agencies with the common goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from information and communication technology (ICT) services. With the future installation of on-site wind turbines, Dataville will become an off-grid wind-powered node in the network.
TDL Group
TDL’s Green Team was established in 2009. Since then, the Green Team has taken steps to drastically reduce energy consumption by switching all lighting to energy efficient lighting and installing motion sensors. Staff have also been educated to turn off electronics at day’s end. Close to 6 million watts have been saved so far.
TDL has also diverted loads of waste from landfill by encouraging reuse of slipsheets, increasing recycling practices, and producing only the necessary amount of marketing material needed.