Constance Berté: Negotiated biodiversity. Urban planning and the challenge of implementing the ‘Avoid-Reduce-Compensate’ approach

Introduced in France in 1976, the ‘Avoid, Reduce, Compensate’ (ERC) framework imposes significant constraints on land-use planning. This system adds a further stage to the planning process, involves intermediaries, and may even partially alter the planning project. Given that ecological compensation is specifically compensation in kind, it also has significant spatial implications, particularly on local land transactions (both within and outside the market). As a necessary element for implementing compensation, land is de facto brought to the forefront. Indeed, compensation sites, with a new use in the medium or long term, are created. Local planning conditions are consequently altered.

This research examines the implementation of the ERC sequence as a public policy measure, analysing the strategies and practices of practitioners on the ground who have to work within the constraints imposed by the standard.

To examine the changes brought about by this regulatory requirement, a process-based approach has been adopted, focusing on three main stages: the construction of the standard itself (the ‘standardisation’ phase), its translation into an operational tool through the establishment of equivalence agreements (the ‘equivalence’ phase) and its integration into the planning and land market (the ‘market integration’ phase). Each of these three stages has implications for the production of space and places constraints on future development projects.

An analysis of these processes reveals discrepancies between the standard’s overarching objectives and its operational implementation, which tends to narrow and diminish the scope of the biodiversity components taken into account. The thesis focuses on the negotiations and power dynamics that influence the operationalisation of the framework, as well as the narrowing of the definition of biodiversity at each of the three stages. These interpretations and adaptations are necessary given the difficulties practitioners encounter in applying the standard. In addition to the difficulty of grasping the concept of biodiversity, practitioners face land tenure challenges, which lead certain actors (project developers, intermediaries, landowners) to adapt their land strategies.

This study, which employs a qualitative methodology, draws on a range of empirical data: extensive exploratory fieldwork that helped to refine the central research question and hypotheses; interviews with project owners, intermediaries and government departments; and a case study focusing on two urban development projects in a medium-sized French town.

• Sabine Barles, University Professor, University of Paris 1, Rapporteur
• Olivier Coutard, Research Director at the CNRS, PhD supervisor
• Nathalie Frascaria-Lacoste, Professor at AgroPrisTech, Examiner
• Harold Levrel, Professor at AgroParisTech, Examiner
• Sylvain Pioch, Senior Lecturer (HDR), University of Montpellier III