Université Sainte-Anne

Université Sainte-Anne is the only French-language post-secondary institution in Nova Scotia. On all five campuses the objective is the same: to give you an edge! While our primary goal is to assure your intellectual development and prepare you for the job market, we are also deeply committed to your personal growth. Join us and together we’ll build your success. Since 2010, Université Sainte-Anne has been using three sources of renewable energy on its Church Point campus:

• a solar thermal system for domestic hot water,
• a gasification biomass furnace,
• a 50-kW wind turbine.

After two years of operation, the project has proven to be a resounding success, both from an economic and from an environmental point of view:

• Université Sainte-Anne has dropped its heating oil consumption, which in turn has reduced its CO2 emissions.
• The combined impact of the 118 solar panels and the wood chip furnace has enabled the institution to save 50% of its energy costs, thanks to the cost difference between biofuels/solar energy and conventional fuels.
• The wind turbine has reduced the institution's power bill. Based on this success, a second wind turbine has been erected and we expect to have it on-line very shortly!
• The local economy has benefited from this green approach: sustainable jobs have thus been created for local people involved in harvesting, processing, and transporting the biofuel.

Under their professor's supervision, volunteer science students are involved in habitat-creation programs intended to help protect a number of threatened species. They have thus built and set up several nest boxes for swallows and black ducks in several locations on the campus. Students are also involved in follow-up procedures during the summer. In September 2012, a new national shorebird observation program will begin: the marine ecology class will count shorebird species every seven days and the results will be entered in a national database.

Be it on campus or in the community, students in SIFE Sainte-Anne (Students in Free Entreprise) and in the Green Team are involved in many actions designed to promote green practices: organizing a Green Conference in collaboration with the municipality; cleaning up the campus and its sea shore; creating and publishing a Green Guide on ways to reduce our energy consumption; collaboration between waste management services in order to improve waste sorting within residences, etc. Our students are involved in sustainable development and it shows.