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Officials at Canada’s first independent school are taking significant steps towards lowering its carbon footprint.

And a solar gardening project pitched for the historic campus will aid in that endeavour.

“I think we all have a moral obligation to do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint,” Joe Seagram, the headmaster of King’s-Edgehill School, said in an interview.

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The Windsor-based private school, which was founded in 1788, has been making small but meaningful changes for several years, including switching to LED lights and installing water-saving showers. The school already has a food waste program and a composting program. Students and staff participate in Earth Day clean-ups and are encouraged to wear thrifted finds or sustainably derived clothing.

The school community is now dreaming big – with a goal to one day decarbonize the campus by embracing new technology.

HARNESSING AGRIVOLTAICS

Seagram said he first learned about agrivoltaics, which involves growing crops underneath an array of solar panels, almost a decade ago. As the school looks to become greener, he believes agrivoltaics will play an integral role.

He’s hoping to introduce this practice to Nova Scotia and harness the sun to help power the school and grow a bountiful annual harvest.

ROAD TO NET ZERO

The 92-acre campus consists of 42 buildings and welcomes students, in Grades 6 to 12, from across the globe. Seagram said King’s-Edgehill School is looking to become the first in Canada to electrify its campus and eliminate its dependency on fossil fuels.

“Right now, I burn about 290,000 litres of furnace oil a year,” Seagram said.

He said the school has partnered with Renewall Energy Inc. – Nova Scotia’s first retail provider of renewable electricity. Renewall focuses on harnessing wind and solar energy and is due to begin servicing clients in the province in 2026.

“This is a massive, first of its kind project in Canada, where you basically take an old institution and you modernize it,” Seagram said of the multi-facetted approach the school is taking to get off fossil fuels.

“If we’re going to electrify the campus, there’s no point electrifying if the power you receive actually has a carbon footprint itself,” he said.

“It turns out that wind power has a season and its peak season is in the winter. Solar power has a season, and its season is basically in the summer,” he continued.

With Renewell, Seagram said the school intends to buy electricity from them in the winter, and Renewell would buy electricity from the school in the summer. However, that agreement still needs approval from the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board and Nova Scotia Power.

Seagram describes the project as being uniquely Atlantic Canadian. Will Marshall, an alumni of King’s-Edgehill and the director of engineering with the Dartmouth-based LMMW Group, is involved with the school’s decarbonization efforts.

“Being an educational institution, I think we have an even greater responsibility to educate and to provide leadership for the youth, so they grow up with an environmental ethic,” Seagram said. “They understand what it means to be sustainable; they understand what they can do to make a difference in the world – a very positive difference.”

FIRST STEP

The project has cleared its first hurdle.

On April 22, West Hants council gave the green light to rezone the property adjacent to the school. The ‘Christmas tree-shaped’ lot was previously owned by the Dill family and purchased by KES.

Will Hong, a planner with the municipality, said the department received the rezoning application on Jan. 7. He described agrivoltaics as “an emerging concept,” allowing “dual use of land for solar energy production and agriculture” and recommended council approve the rezoning from residential to institutional and adding a definition to the Windsor Land Use Bylaw. As of press time, there was only one day left to appeal the decision and then it would become official.

During the meeting, one resident expressed some concerns with potential runoff issues and solar glare, but was assured those items would be addressed through the municipality’s development standards.

Seagram attended the meeting and told those at the public hearing that while they are considered a green-certified school in the province, he’s looking for it to become an international eco school.

“We feel that this is our ethical duty; that we really must be educating our students to be good stewards of the planet.”

West Hants Mayor Abraham commended King’s-Edgehill School for its initiative.

“It’s educational and a cost savings. It’s quite innovative. Who better than King’s to lead that charge? I think it’s a great project,” Zebian said in an interview.

He said it’s always positive when organizations look for ways to improve and grow.

“They’re thinking outside the box,” he said. “They’re thinking of tomorrow and the future. It’s proactiveness rather than reactiveness. You’ll never go wrong with being proactive.”

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