For several years, at TerrOïko, we have been defending another idea of biodiversity protection and its consideration in urban planning and construction projects.
Our CEO Sylvain Moulherat went to present its main aspects this week during the innovation meetings of the "Lab Public Works and Infrastructure," supported by the National Federation of Public Works and IMPULSE PARTNERS - A FAST LANE FOR INNOVATION.
Our conviction is that development projects must be designed and implemented by considering the health of ecosystems as priority number 1. We talk about "Design for Nature," an approach formalized in 2021 by Chiara Catalano and to which we contributed.
To achieve this, we must ensure that we work coherently at all geographical scales (the entire territory, the area to be developed, the specific building...) and at all decision-making stages (territorial planning, project design, impact studies, monitoring during the operational phase...).
How do we do it?
A quick recap in three points:
- We rely on an existing framework, that of the ERC sequence (avoid, reduce, compensate). By implementing this approach iteratively, from the territorial planning phase on a large scale and then at each stage of the project, at increasingly smaller scales, we can refine diagnostics while ensuring overall coherence.
- We use relevant methods to assess the functioning of ecological networks and the impact of projects on biodiversity. Using a tool to simulate the life of species (for example, our SimOïko software) makes it possible to carry out these analyses at all scales, at all stages, and on all scenarios considered. And to ensure that these modeling results are comparable with each other, we define ecological quality indicators based on different metrics:
- Accessibility (Can species reach the studied site?)
- Responsibility (What role does the studied site play in the overall ecological network?)
- Diversity (How many species are likely to persist on the site?)
- Tranquility (What is the intensity of anthropogenic pressures on the site?)
- We integrate all this into modeling tools (BIM) and digital twins that building and infrastructure professionals use to design, build, and manage structures throughout their life cycle.
And this topic is the core of the OptibioNum research project that we will start in a few weeks.