Foundations for effective implementation

Climate change is an incredibly complex challenge that needs to be addressed through several avenues. This kind of action is time- and resource-intensive. To effectively implement the plan, significant financial investments into human resources and project funding will be required. With investment into the implementation of the Climate Change Action Plan, the College can keep on track to increase resilience and minimize vulnerabilities while aligning with its strategic and sustainability goals. De-carbonizing our operations and preparing for climate threats will help the College reduce the future cost of reacting to emerging climate change-related issues. The COVID-19 pandemic is a recent example of how a modest investment in coordination and planning can mitigate larger-scale reactive solutions that are less efficient and disrupt business continuity.

The Climate Change Action Plan was developed - in part - through consultation with many stakeholders from across the College. The result is a plan that creates goals and supporting actions for College operations, campus master planning, and Academics, all while applying additional lenses of equity and Indigenous principles like Netukulimk; a complex Mi'kmaq cultural concept that guides individual and collective beliefs and behaviors in resource protection, procurement, and management to ensure and honour sustainability and prosperity for the ancestor, present and future generations.

What became clear during the process was that everyone at NSCC will have a role to play in making our goals a reality. The executive will provide guidance and leadership, College Departments will embed the key themes of the plan into existing plans and strategies, and individuals will be empowered to act in their roles by making choices that support our shared goals.

Executive sponsor(s)

Provide senior-level guidance and functional leadership to embed the Climate Change Action Plan goals into education, research, leadership, operations, administration, and engagement activities across the College.

College departments

Embed key themes of climate change adaptation, mitigation and education in projects supporting both NSCC’s current Strategic Plan and Climate Change Action Plan by embedding climate change action into their existing unit-level plans, detailing their contributions to these strategies.

Climate Change Working Group

In order to achieve the level of cohesiveness needed to advance our climate agenda in such a diverse, fast-moving organization, we will require a mechanism to effectively communicate with various College units; to provide updates, receive feedback, workshop ideas, and to create partnerships that contribute to the goals of the plan. Our initial thought is to create a "working group", a network of colleagues who provide a diverse perspective on the College's Strategic Enablers and Priority Areas of Impact, as they relate to climate action. A Climate Change Working Group will be established to advance and monitor progress towards NSCC’s climate change goals regarding mitigation, adaptation, and education. The Working Group will include members from the College’s SDG Steering Committee, as well as ex-officio members within NSCC who will act as key advisors and champions of climate change action within the College’s existing organizational structure. This working group will act as a sounding board, a repository for information, and a pathway for communication to advance the key themes of the Climate Change Action Plan.

Individuals

Individual action is essential to addressing climate change. Members of the NSCC community can participate in the Climate Change Action Plan by making personal choices at home and work that support our shared goals. Action areas include energy use, consumption of goods, commuting methods, and food choices, all of which have a cumulative impact on an individual’s carbon footprint. NSCC will strive to provide institutional supports to empower our staff, students, and faculty to make choices that reduce our carbon emissions.