Short name: BIOTOPE SAS
Country: France
Type of organisation:
Created in France in 1993, Biotope has become one of the World’s leading consultancies specialized in biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services. With a dedicated full-time staff of over 240, mostly biodiversity specialists, Biotope has extensive experience and know-how in ecological surveying, decision support and consulting, as well as environmental communication, and natural history publishing.
The company has offices and affiliates in Europe (France, Belgium, Luxemburg), South America (French Guiana, Martinique, soon Colombia), China (Beijing), and Africa (Gabon, Guinea, Morocco, Madagascar), and the Indian Ocean (Réunion). The firm works regularly on projects across the world, with experience in over 45 countries.
Specialized in ecological assessment, Biotope has acquired invaluable experience in supporting project developers and site managers in assessing their impacts and managing their biodiversity risks. Biotope has assisted clients in various sectors, including oil & gas, solar and wind energy, including offshore projects, and a variety of linear infrastructure (roads railways, pipelines) and industrial facilities (including LNG plants, oil terminals, mines and quarries, etc.), and agro-industrial projects.
Over the past 25 years, Biotope has worked with clients at all stages of project life cycles: feasibility assessments, screening and scoping, baseline studies, critical habitat assessments, impact assessments, design and monitoring of mitigation and compensation / offset measures (biodiversity action plans), biodiversity monitoring and adaptative management, on-site inspections during construction and operations, restoration associated with decommissioning, etc. Our approach is hands-on and operational, to ensure our recommendations are applicable and fit client needs and circumstances.
As well as experienced field naturalists, Biotope’s team includes specialized GIS and mapping specialists and biostatisticians to conduct quantitative and statistically robust assessments of biodiversity and natural resources. Biotope is regularly engaged in scientific research in collaboration with world class scientific teams in Europe and elsewhere.
Our work also covers conservation projects, programs and policies including the preparation of management plans for protected areas and sustainable resource use (in farming, forestry and fisheries), and the identification of networks of priority areas for protection and interconnection through strategic multi-sectorial planning. The firm also has a strong experience in the use of ecosystem service approaches, including their identification and mapping, and economic valuation. Working also with conservation organizations and public agencies, we bring valuable experience and practical know-how in linking business and biodiversity.
Biotope’s experience in the field adds significant value and lessons learned to a growing involvement in strategy and policy development. Biotope’s experienced consultants provide strategic advice on biodiversity to lenders (e.g. Agence Française de Développement, International Finance Corporation, European Investment Bank, among others), corporations, NGOs (e.g. Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, etc.) and governments, worldwide. Our contributions are particularly focused on biodiversity mainstreaming, complex conservation – development trade-offs, innovative financing mechanisms (payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity offsets, public-private partnerships for conservation, etc.) and the creation of conservation trust funds.
Biotope is also a publishing house that produces natural history books, in partnership with the French National Museum of Natural History. These have become references for spreading scientific knowledge in Europe. Biotope’s communication department has graphic designers, scientific writers (editors and translators) and photographers, developing all kind of communication products (exhibitions, books, web sites, interpretive trails, etc.), to help our clients to better communicate with their stakeholders about their projects and their work on biodiversity. Biotope has prepared multiple technical guidance documents on biodiversity management for industry (wind energy, quarries, oil & gas, etc.) and governments, in France and elsewhere.
