Like many good stories, Habitat’s began with a trio: a geographer, a biologist and a forestry engineer, all university professors and researchers, who decided to join forces to start an environmental engineering firm specializing in biodiversity.
“No one used to make the connection between global warming and biodiversity, which was seen as a distant problem, but today more and more people are connecting the issues,” said Habitat CEO Jérôme Dupras, a professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Economics.
Founded in 2017, Habitat now has 30 employees who carry out several dozen projects a year. These have ranged from building a green corridor in Nicolet to mapping Quebec’s agricultural corridors, developing a tree-planting strategy for Montreal, managing the Rivière du Nord watershed in the Laurentians, building up the resilience of Rosemère’s urban forest and advising on land use for the ancestral territory of the Innu Nation of Essipit.
“There’s a lot of interest in biodiversity, but not many companies are as dedicated as we are to linking cutting-edge university research to local stakeholders,” explained Andrew Gonzalez, Professor of Biology at McGill University and holder of the Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology.
With their third musketeer, Christian Messier, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UQAM and holder of the Research Chair in Forest Resilience to Global Changes, the trio considers its mission to help municipalities, First Nations, regional county municipalities (RCM) and businesses understand how to protect and restore the biodiversity of their forests, wetlands and meadows.
“We have developed computer tools to analyze and visualize connectivity in ecological corridors, but also the resilience of forests and the urban tree canopy,” said Gonzalez. “We are uniquely positioned in the market. It’s our signature.”
Biodiversity as a business challenge
The three partners and researchers have close ties. Gonzalez met Dupras when the latter was a postdoctoral researcher in his laboratory at McGill. The two have worked closely on several research projects and organizing conferences, as well as with Messier, a leading specialist in urban forestry.
“It took us a few years to understand how to run a business. The challenge is obviously to make sure it becomes greater than the sum of its parts,” said Dupras, who is proud of having built a team of specialists, half of whom hold either a master’s degree or doctorate. Since June, Habitat has been able to support its development with a $3.5 million investment from Quebec’s Solidarity Fund QFL. It’s the fund’s first investment directly related to biodiversity.
The partners say they manage to juggle their careers as entrepreneurs and academics without too much difficulty.
“McGill gives me solid support, and I take full advantage of the four days a month that the University gives me,” said Gonzalez. “The University has been encouraging scholars to get out of the ivory tower for 25 years now,” he said.
In addition to biodiversity, Dupras has the added challenge of having to juggle his diverse interests. In Quebec, he is best known as the bassist of the famous rock band Les Cowboys Fringants.
Setting the standard
Although Habitat has completed contracts in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Belgium, the United States and Guinea, Quebec is the company’s primary focus.
Gonzalez said COP15 in Montreal in 2022 was a game changer in that respect. In addition to seeing the signature of a historic agreement that provides a framework for the protection of biodiversity in 188 countries, the event raised awareness among public figures in Quebec about the need to protect the complexity of living things.
As Dupras explained, the Quebec government and all municipal organizations are now developing their own climate plan and implementation plan. “We’re already working on this with three regional county municipalities. Our challenge right now is trying to fit square pegs into round holes.”
The two associates, who were very active at COP15, also took part in COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in late October 2024, as consultants. Gonzalez also was there in his capacity as co-chair of GEO BON (for Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network), an international network of 3,500 researchers with its headquarters in Montreal, supported by the federal and provincial governments, the Fonds de recherche du Québec and McGill University.
For several years, Habitat has been involved in research to design eco-taxation tools to protect biodiversity. However, the big problem with the 2022 agreement, Gonzalez said, is the lack of indicators.
The fact of the matter is, biodiversity is about more than numbers of species, or the size of their populations. It includes a strong qualitative dimension related to the relationships between species and the spaces they occupy.
“It’s more complicated than just tonnes of carbon,” said Dupras. “We’re currently testing our tool with companies. We hope to be able to make an announcement soon.”
Gonzalez remains enthusiastic about the future.
“Biodiversity is difficult to measure and to include in a regional strategy. But as Habitat breaks new ground in this area, it is setting the standards in this field.”