Eco-Businesses

Eco-Industrial Networks

Eco-industrial networks (EINs) develop relationships between businesses, communities, academia, and government to more efficiently and effectively use resources. Most think of resources in terms of just materials and energy, but  this concept is expanded to include people, land and infrastructure in EINs.

By using resources in this manner, EINs experience:

• More efficient land use planning;
• Green buildings, technologies and practices;
• By-product synergies;
• Stronger partnerships between public and private organizations;
• Multi-objective infrastructure systems;
• Greater community and ecosystem health; and
• Greater returns on capital investment.

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

 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.

Debert Eco-Industrial Community

This is the Debert of the future…a place where there is a blending of healthy and colorful cultural, social, commercial and environmental philosophies and undertakings. A place where the ancient Mi’kmaq culture, military history, industrial activity and community presence are merged with modern, environmentally responsible
practices. A place of revival of pre-war technologies and infrastructure into cutting edge manufacturing, innovative technologies and green multi-objective infrastructure. A place where people want to live and work.

Debert is a village that has a population of just over 1400 people. Debert has an interesting and varied economic mix, composed of farming, an industrial park and tourism. Its cultural development is centred around military history and the Mi’kmawey Debert initiative. Plans are underway to develop the Debert Paleo Indian National Historic site of Canada. This location provides evidence of the earliest human occupation in eastern Canada dating to
between 11,000 and 13,000 calendar years ago.

Eco-Industrial Park Development

The Debert Air Industrial Park (DAIP) spans an area of approximately 4200 acres. Debert is attractive to distribution and transportation centres, as it currently houses a number of these types of facilities. And there is no shortage of space for future development! Debert has approximately 1600 acres available for industrial development. CoRDA and its partners are in the process of developing the DAIP in an eco-industrial fashion using principles from industrial ecology.  Check back to our site regularly for updates!

Mi’kmawey Debert

More than 11,000 years ago, this land, known as Mi’kma’ki by the Mi’kmaq, was the home to the first peoples in Canada. In Debert, Nova Scotia, a suite of archaeological sites first discovered more than 60 years ago continues to reveal new evidence of people on what was a glacial landscape. These are the oldest directly-dated archaeological sites in Canada, and they are among the largest, most intact and most important archaeological sites of this age in North America. This is part of the remarkable legacy of the Mi’kmaq that must be protected. The Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre is an outgrowth of efforts to protect the sites, with an all-Mi’kmaw Board of Directors, a mandate of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, and on-going guidance from an Elders’ Advisory Council.

When visitors arrive to the Cultural Centre, they will be immersed in a dynamic cultural landscape that comes alive with Mi’kmaw worldviews. Unlike most museums and cultural centres, visitors here will experience a wide range of experiential learning programs and activities lasting from one hour to several days. The Centre will meet educational demands provincially, nationally and internationally by being a year-round learning place and by providing a robust outreach program to off-site locations. Specifically-designed programs will offer a dimension of personal and community healing for the Mi’kmaq. The first public milestone of the project was the opening in 2003 of a beautiful 4.4 kilometer interpretive trail. Located along Plains Road in Debert, the Mi’kmawey Debert Interpretive Trail has become a popular destination for visitors from near and far.

The future Centre will help weave the spirit and pride of being Mi’kmaq back into daily life – fostering all aspects of healing: emotional, physical, mental and spiritual, while at the same time ensuring that Mi’kmaw culture and heritage is integral to family stories and the early history of North America.

Debert’s Military History