Key Numbers

20  years of involvement in biodiversity expertise

60 employees

6 regional agencies

4 400 Field missions per year

900 environmental impact assessment studies in 5 years

386 000 ground observations in 3 years

33 scientific publications

40 presentation papers

Our commitment

Conduct your ecological assessments in complete impartiality, support your environmental permitting,
and provide groundtruthed operational and balanced solutions to your environmental challenges.

IENE member

UPGE member

COS-FRB member

Vigi-DNA member

Ecologic genius price 2018

About us

Founded in 1998 in Avignon, Naturalia-Environnement is an independent consulting agency in ecology and engineering for all terrestrial and aquatic natural environments.

As a major player in biodiversity impact assessment studies within the current regulatory framework, we help clients from the public or the private sector with any development project or plan, with a main focus in the following domains :

  • Linear transport infrastructures,
  • Renewable energy,
  • Natural ressources (mining industry),
  • hydraulic engineering projects and aquatic systems,
  • Land use planning (From regional to local scale, from planning to project implementation),
  • Real estate, town planning and urban ecology.

The company today includes about 60 staff members, with a large majority of ecologists.

The agency gathers biodiversity experts in all taxonomic groups for terrestrial as well as aquatic compartments (flora, birds, mammals, chiroptera, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fishes and molluscs).

Naturalia-Environnement also brings together a team of ecologists specialized in urban development (green infrastructure networks, town planning and cadastral management, etc.), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) managers, as well as skilled engineers trained in contracting works and field supervision who apply ecological engineering principles to propose sustainable and innovative solutions.

Deeply concerned by the environmental issues affecting our society today, especially in regards to biodiversity erosion in every possible aspect, our team of passionate naturalists is dedicated to nature conservation. Our team of wildlife experts is always on the run, keeping up with all latest changes in their fields, such as discoveries and updates in taxonomy and species protection regulations.

From the last 20 years, Naturalia-Environnement is focused on its core mission: biodiversity assessment.  Naturalia can intervene at any project scale on a wide range of issues:

  • Fauna, flora, and natural environment on terrestrial and aquatic systems, including wetlands (within or beside regulatory frameworks),
  • Environmental coordination (Projects management and contracting works supervising),
  • Legal monitoring and assistance to project holders according to environmental legislation,
  • Ecological engineering measures (natural areas restauration and environmental remedial actions),
  • Other works requiring specific expertise (with partial operations or complete undertaking),
  • Project audit and strategical advice.

With 20 years of expertise in ecological studies and environmental permitting, Naturalia-Environnement can draw upon solid naturalist knowledge and mastery in field investigation methods. The company can also rely on its proven capacity to develop and deploy innovative ecological engineering solutions aimed at protecting, managing and restoring wild ecosystems. Moreover, its geographical presence contributes to well-established relationships with local stakeholders. 

3 operationals units

The ecological assessment unit

 Naturalia offers solutions to the pressure on land planning by taking care of wildlife and natural areas conservation to avoid biodiversity erosion. Our agency has led over 900 case studies during the last 5 years, and mobilizes about 4400 days a year on field surveys. Our studies mainly target :

  • Biodiversity assessments, including Chiroptera
  • Regulatory filing for various environmental permitting ( building permit, planning permission, and procedures on case-by-case basis)
  • Urban ecology and renovation of urban and suburban areas
  • Environmental DNA analysis (eDNA)
  • Wetlands and soil science (according to the French Agency for Water and Aquatic Environments standards)
  • Project management support and advice
  • Project audit and ecological counter-assessment

The biodiversity assessments conducted by Naturalia-Environnement ecologists rely on standardized and recognized methodologies. They are considered as extensive and highly reliable by the government’s institutions.

Naturalia-Environnement has signed the charter of commitment of the consulting offices, and the charter of commitment between the environmental consulting agencies and the quarry industry union in the Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur-Corse region (UNICEM).

 

The earthworks unit

In most cases, to follow-up with our assessment studies, Naturalia will be requested by its clients and partners to participate to the projects implementation. Our ecologists therefore act as supervisors in monitoring the contracting works, to ensure ecological measures are applied as per the recommendations.

The missions of our earthworks unit concern :

  • Ecological guidance to contractors
  • Environmental coordination (during the building phase)
  • Environmental follow-up (during the operation phase)
  • Environmental counter-assessment
  • Specific works, including roped-up interventions on cliffs (investigations made on bridges and overhead structures, cliff securing, trees removal …)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Research & Development unit

 Naturalia-Environnement keeps a strong commitment to be an active member of the scientific research community, as the organization is deeply convinced of the urgency to find applicable and efficient solutions addressing the current biodiversity crisis. A Research & Development unit has therefore been established within Naturalia-Environnement since 2011, in partnership with European most important research institutions. Its missions are:

  • Keep a regular communication with the government’s research institutions and the scientific community on issues related to biodiversity
  • Initiate and lead Phd Programs within academic routes
  • Improve methodological approaches and knowledge on biodiversity conservation

Our Research & Development projects are framed around two major themes :

Biodiversity and Ecology

The core subject of this theme is to understand how plant and animal communities have established themselves, especially within the Mediterranean basin. What is the natural environments evolution and what is the resulting effect on those living organisms? On their ecology? What is their distribution and what is their conservation status?

Research methodologies on fauna, flora and ecosystems conservation

This research focal area looks into innovative and completely new solutions on issues related to ecological practices and their requirements for a successful implementation. It aims at finding practical answers through methods and protocols development, in order to better integrate biodiversity within land planning projects.

For Naturalia-Environnement innovation is a key factor in its development, as innovation contributes largely to the in-depth quality of its expertise. R&D is also a corporate social responsibility since a significant part of the annual turnover is being invested in R&D, along with external fundings. 

Scientific publications, presentation papers, and awards

2018 : Young Researcher Awards for biodiversity conservation studies; awarded by the Biodiversity Research Foundation (FRB)

2015 : Vinci Innovation Awards, « Sustainable development » category, Centralized activities region.  A Vinci/Naturalia-Environnement/Birds Protection League (LPO) partnership.

The GIS and Mapping unit, a cross-functional approach to ecology

The Geographic Information System (GIS) is a powerful tool enabling data integration from multiple sources, and effective environmental data management, analysis and modeling. Advanced data processing through spatial and thematic queries allows presenting geo-localized information on maps essentials to projects contextual understanding.

Thanks to the thorough information it provides, the geospatial tool helps proposing projects alternate pathways, and therefore contributes to decision making. The GIS highly facilitates communication and interactive exchanges between Naturalia-Environnement ecologists and project promoters.

Our team of ecologists uses a dedicated mobile application for field data capture, results of R&D works on applied ecology. This application has been created for taxonomic data entry using standardized forms based on taxonomical referentials. The application is integrated within a range of geospatial processing tools with a perfect compliance to the GIS data processing format.

The data processing automation provides integrative models ensuring a high level of accuracy and quality control. Manual operations are kept to the minimum to reduce potentials errors and improve results traceability.

Advice and Leadership support

For Naturalia-Environnement, besides professional ethics and best practices, being a consultant involves the capacity to put forward proposals helping project promoters in their decision making, particularly:

  • Project guidance on potential planning options in agreement with the regulation
  • Recommendation on ecological impact reduction measures and remediation efforts
  • Advice on government institutions expectations regarding files compliance to current legislations
  • Recommendation on monitoring indices during operation phase, according to standard procedures and proven case studies

The management support to project holders can be deployed at various stages:

  • During the filing process to the government institutions
  • Before and during the consultative meetings with the government institutions (legal framework definition, derogation request, etc…)
  • During the operation phase while implementing ecological impact reduction measures and engineering solutions for site remediation.

Well-known and established professionalism

Naturalia-Environnement enjoys a solid reputation within the environmental industry and the scientific community, in particular regarding our R&D unit.

Intervention areas

On France mainland territory, our 6 regional agencies give preferences to close relationship with local stake holders, always taking opportunity to improve ecological knowledge on local environments, in favor to biodiversity assessments accuracy.

In the French Overseas Territories, Naturalia-Environnement leads missions dealing with ecological permitting for various types of projects (Renewable energies, Linear Transport Infrastructure, joint approach developments, etc.), as well as scientific expeditions. Our most remarkable achievements refer to the French Guyana and the West Indies missions.

At international level, within joint partnerships agreements, Naturalia-Environnement offers its expertise for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for any kind of projects, mostly in Africa and South-East Asia.

Our values

There are many reasons to feel concerned about the accelerated biodiversity loss observed during the last ten years, and about the resulting long terms effects on human life conditions. Naturalia-Environnement is facing this issue on a daily basis for every single project while conducting its core activities in agreement with the legislation and the environmental industry expectations. Naturalia-Environnement is driven by the quality of its staff members and by the company’s values and principles, founding its system and structure.

Integrity

Our ecologists stand for the scientific opinions and technical solutions they believe in, without any other motives or influences. It is based on that perspective that Naturalia-Environnement leads exhaustive field investigations, and ensures filings according to current regulations and professional charters. As an ecological consultant, Naturalia-Environnement proposes tools and methods aiming for a reduction of impacts on natural environments, within the “Avoid, Reduce, Compensate” framework, and towards no net loss of biodiversity.

Involvement

In order to help the projects holders complete their works successfully, Naturalia-Environnement gets totally involved in the missions it has been granted, and answers all requirements with dedication and continuous support. By delivering accurate and extensive reports, Naturalia-Environnement ensures a proper regulatory filing often minimizing potential appeals and facilitating decision making by the authorities.  A project manager leads the entire team of naturalists assigned to every study.  As a single point of contact, the project manager provides support and guidance to our clients and partners throughout the filing and the operation phase.

Quality

Following a project-oriented organizational structure, Naturalia-Environnement mobilizes at least two experts per taxonomic groups, therefore ensuring a constant quality output on every assessment made.

Thanks to 20 years of experience, and because of the high level of expertise of our team members, our assessments are able to address every aspect of biodiversity. Our studies benefit from a solid reputation among the government’s institutions.

The ecosystems conservation measures proposed by Naturalia-Environnement, and delivered by our operations monitoring unit, are equally well representing the efficiency of our team’s involvement in the field.