Nova Scotia Community College
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

Recently NSCC partnered with Provincial stakeholders to develop a shared vision and commitment for accessibility for Nova Scotia's post-secondary sector. The result was the development of the Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Accessibility Framework. Guided by this document, NSCC recently launched Setting the Stage: A Social Justice Approach to Accessibility, NSCC's Accessibility Plan 2022-2025 (see link below).
Efforts are underway to complete accessibility audits at all NSCC campuses as it relates to compliance with building codes. The audits will help the Facilities team better plan and prioritize future work and create cost estimates for each campus.
To date, three campus audits have been completed. Two NSCC Campuses – Ivany Campus and the Institute of Technology Campus - have been Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certified (RHFAC) through the RHFAC Program.
Under NSCC's Accessibility Plan, all new buildings — including the Sydney Waterfront Campus and the new student housing facilities – have been designed and are being built in accordance with the accessibility standards and guidelines of the RHFAC Program.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals developed by the United Nations in 2015 as a blueprint to achieve a more sustainable future for everyone. The Goals were proposed as the main objective of the UN 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development to tackle some of the world’s most complex and pressing issues such as poverty, gender equality and climate change. The Goals have had a substantial global impact, with 193 UN member states adopting the Agenda.
NSCC has made our own commitment to the Goals. In January of 2021, NSCC became one of the first institutions in Canada to sign the SDG Accord. Which represents the College’s commitment to do more to deliver the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As one of the first Canadian institutions to sign the Accord, NSCC will lead other institutions as a positive example of innovation and partnerships.
In response to NSCC signing the SDG Accord, the SDG Steering Committee was created to bring collaboration and inspiration to the work. The SDG Steering Committee is composed of a diverse representation of sustainability champions across the college. They have been tasked with advancing the critical role that education has in delivering the 17 SDGs, measuring the continued progress toward the SDGs, providing senior-level guidance and leadership, fostering collaboration with other institutions and reporting on SDG progress annually. This central body will work in the coming years to position NSCC’s commitment to the SDG Accord centrally in its operations and deliver on strategic goals relevant to sustainable development. This includes maintaining NSCC’s SDG Action Plan, which outlines all college actions supporting the SDGs.

NSCC is currently constructing a new campus in the town of Sydney. The ‘NSCC Sydney Waterfront Campus’ is an education project with a community development agenda. It seeks to transform the landscape of the regional economy through the visibility of new research opportunities, training initiatives, community partnerships, enterprise collaborations, and cultural celebrations.

The campus is a collective of 4 interconnected structures carefully scaled into the fabric of the downtown on the shores of Sydney Harbour. These structures infill gaps and create physical connections, between the downtown and the waterfront, that promote interaction and engagement.

The campus aspires to be “of its place and of its people”. It will celebrate and feature the unique identity of Cape Breton Island and showcase the rich cultural influences that distinguish the region, including First Nation heritage, through interpretive installations that shape interior and landscape treatments and express local traditions.

The campus will be an urban public park that invites public access on all faces and welcomes community use. Its pedway over the Esplanade can funnel a student and staff population of 1400 directly onto the commercial main street to support the vitality of the downtown and the viability of its merchant community.

Much of the campus site is landfill area that, until the 1960’s, was part of the harbour floor. These new structures would have projected beyond the former shoreline and into the ocean not so long ago. The shoreline is being raised by approximately 1.25 metres to address Year 2100 sea level rise and storm surge projections.

Due to harbour infill conditions, much of the building construction is supported on 830 steel H piles driven 60 feet into the ground for sound bearing. At the time of pile driving in 2020, this was the largest such contract underway in the country.

The new campus precinct is reclaimed industrial land involving at least 7 contaminated sites which have been remediated to current environmental standards as part of an agenda to “green” the waterfront and downtown.

The structures on campus enclose 305,000 square feet of interior space for active program use and for community amenities. Exhibit areas, meeting rooms, and gathering spaces provide access and hospitality to the public at large, including local communities that have historically been marginalized.

The campus will be heated and cooled entirely using geothermal energy sourced from the underlying aquifer via three drilled supply wells. Feeding a geothermal loop serving distributed heat pumps, the energy system will be highly efficient in transferring heating and cooling between areas of thermal supply and demand.

The project is designed and constructed to achieve high standards of environmental sustainability and universal accessibility, and will achieve certification under the CaGBC LEED program and the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Program. Campus planning, design, and engineering creates readiness for a carbon neutral future.

Throughout peak construction the project will employ 200 tradespeople per day, approximately 17.5% of whom identify as members of equity seeking groups under a social procurement agenda.