Transfer Environment and Society

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The art of building bridges

About us

Founded in 1987, Transfer Environment and Society (TES) offers a unique and pioneering expertise in multi-stakeholder engagement, consultations, meeting facilitation and community relations. Aimed towards responsible development, the processes recommended by TES allow organizations to meet the high demands of stakeholder engagement and social acceptability. With a team of over 30 full-time professionals, dozens of collaborators and offices throughout Quebec, TES is the largest firm dedicated to environmental communications, public participation, and social acceptability in Canada.

Fostering meaningful conversations between communities and proponents

Our know-how, our vision: everyone wins

Transfer Environment and Society aims to make all stakeholders winners. Over the years, TES has made its mark by rallying organizations and communities towards common objectives. Guided by our values of excellence, integrity, equity and commitment, TES’ expertise and credibility are recognized both by its clients and by the stakeholders who participate in the processes that we create and manage.

Organizations, individuals and communities: everyone wins.

In Canada and beyond

We support clients and communities in Quebec and other parts of Canada, including Indigenous nations and communities with whom we have a long and varied history of collaboration. Our staff also has extensive international experience in the following regions: Western Africa, South America, Eastern Europe,Southeast Asia, and Australasia.

Our services are tailored to meet the specific needs of each project to ensure
their social integration:

Engagement, Consultation, and Facilitation

Develop collaborative approaches and act as a facilitating third party during meetings, committees and in resolving disputes.

Indigenous Reconciliations

Advise and accompany towards reconciliation with First People.

Social Risk Analysis

Verify and validate information and assess project social sensitivity and investment opportunities.

Environmental and Social Communication

Prepare, equip and support effective and transparent communication, particularly in the context of the public evaluation and review of projects.

Impact Measurement and Reporting

Measure and report on the performance and monitoring of commitments to communities, investors, and other stakeholders.

Cohabitation and Social Performance

Building team capacity to foster lasting trust-based relationships with communities.

Social Management of Projects and Issues-Transfert Consult

Social Management of Projects and Issues

TES’s expertise comes in a range of services that allow for the harmonious
development of a project, taking into account:

  • The aspirations of the communities
  • Social scoping and stakeholder mapping
  • Planning and implementation of community engagement strategies
  • Strategic communication
  • Participatory approaches for successful change management on large
    projects
  • Complaint and nuisance management
  • Social assessment of environmental and social impacts
  • Inclusion of indigenous peoples in project development following the
    principles of free, prior and informed consent
  • Identification of community and economic contributions to local and
    regional development
  • Compensation measures for risks, impacts and nuisances
  • Harmonious property acquisition process

Social Acceptability and Public Participation-Transfert Consult

Social Acceptability and Public Participation

TES initiates its approach with a precise diagnostic portrait of the situation. Its analysis focuses on a set of fundamental factors of social acceptability that must be considered when implementing a project. These factors are of six types: social, environmental, economic, technical, location and governance. Three essential elements also guide TES: information, consultation and collaboration.

  • Knowing and sharing the issues
  • Building bridges and constructing dialogue
  • Consolidate commitments

Citizen Participation and Online Engagement-Transfert Consult

Citizen Participation and Online Engagement

TES helps you foster online engagement and generate meaningful
discussions.

  • Assessing Issues and Needs in an Online Public Consultation Process
  • Strategic planning of online public participation
  • Choice of digital tools and platforms to achieve your objectives
  • Adaptation of tools to the constraints of the public (accessibility)
  • Coaching and support for the management of public participation tools
  • Coordination and animation of virtual meetings and conferences
  • Organization of online open houses
  • Setting up a website to centralize communications and keep the public informed
  • Monitoring and analysis of concerns on social media, blogs and online media

Animation and Mediation-Transfert Consult

Animation and Mediation

TES is involved in many projects to facilitate exchanges with the
community and stakeholders.

  • Facilitation of information and consultation sessions
  • Environmental and social facilitation and mediation
  • Creation, animation and coordination of liaison committees, monitoring
    committees, citizen committees
  • Creation, animation and coordination of working groups on specialized
    issues
  • Co-development and co-design workshops, working tables, etc.

Social And Environmental Communication Activities-Transfert Consult

Social And Environmental Communication Activities

Communicating to establish a genuine and profitable dialogue is a challenge that the TES team takes up every day.

  • Social, community and environmental communication plans
  • Social integration of activities, operations and projects
  • Prevention and management of conflicts and social crises
  • Development and writing of popularized content
  • Writing of web content for community relations

Strategic Studies, Analysis And Monitoring-Transfert Consult

Strategic Studies, Analysis And Monitoring

Knowing the host environment of a project allows you to plan its
integration well. This helps to better understand the community’s
expectations of the proposed project.

  • Social profile and social strategy
  • Social feasibility studies
  • Social opportunity and risk assessment
  • 2.0 media monitoring (traditional press and social media)

Corporate Social Responsibility-Transfert Consult

Corporate Social Responsibility

TES assists companies that wish to improve their sustainable development
performance and that are keen to communicate the progress they are making.

  • Assessment and diagnosis of social performance
  • Social management and community relations policies and plans
  • Disclosure and reporting of social performance in sustainable development

Training-Transfert Consult

Training

TES’s trainers help you develop your teams in different areas, such as:

  • Social acceptability
  • Public participation
  • Impact assessment and public review
  • Indigenous Relations
  • Crisis management
  • Communication and media relations

Mapping-Transfert Consult

Mapping

Computer-assisted mapping can be used to illustrate:

  • Buffer zones around an industrial or mining site
  • The host environment of a project and its different uses
  • The distribution of the various elements of the project itself
  • The traditional Aboriginal territories in which the project is located
  • The different phases of a development
  • The results of a participatory mapping workshop with the communit

We support organizations and communities within the context of major projects or ongoing community relations in several sectors and industries:

  • Mining
  • Industrial activities such as smelting and metal processing
  • Transportation and urban planning
  • Sustainable development
  • Energy
  • Waste management

Contact us

Feel free to contact us for any inquiries:

Cedric Bourgeois

Co-founder and partner at TES

Co-founder and partner at TES, Cédric specializes in the prevention, management and defusing of social conflicts with regards to major project development. As a senior strategic advisor in over a hundred mandates, Cédric is a key actor in all the files he is entrusted with.

He is responsible for the deployment of TES’ mission, which is to put communities and stakeholders at the heart of project development and to engage them in a process that promotes the fostering and preservation of a mutually enriching and beneficial dialogue.

cbourgeois@transfertconsult.ca

819 345-6592


Guy De Granpré

Senior Director of the Mining Sector

Guy De Grandpré is Senior Director, Mining Sector at TES. He has 20 years of experience as a manager in international mining companies, with particular expertise in Country Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Corporate Development and Human Capital Management, mainly in West and Central Africa. Prior to his professional activities in the mining sector, Guy held senior management positions in the financial sector in Quebec, where he was notably Director of Public Affairs for the Confédération des caisses populaires et d’économie Desjardins du Québec and Secretary General of SSQ Financial Group. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from the École nationale d’administration publique and a certificate in Economics and Society from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris.

gdegrandpre@transfertconsult.ca

873 662-2498


Anik Pouliot

Project Director and Montreal Office Manager

Anik is a specialist in communication applied to public participation with solid experience in virtual and traditional engagement strategies. She’s a practitioner of creative and rigorous public participation. Her empathetic leadership makes her a valuable collaborator, particularly in difficult contexts. Anik worked for more than 13 years at the Office de consultation publique de Montréal before joining the ranks of TES. During these years, she assumed operational leadership for more than 90 public consultations. A sociodidact of the digital age, she has been involved in several communities of practice and remains an active collaborator in numerous professional and community networks in digital communications, citizen participation and social innovation. In her practice, she prioritizes flexible and responsive strategic planning that promotes constructive exchanges and adaptability. She is able to quickly summarize the different facets of a problem and clearly determine the criteria and objectives that will guide the decisions to be made. Anik is recognized for the excellence of her strategic vision and her enthusiasm for transforming constraints into opportunities. She understand stakeholder needs, engage them in an iterative process of finding solutions, and then communicate results with empathy.

apouliot@transfertconsult.ca

514 743-9369


Isaac Gauthier

Project Director

Isaac Gauthier is a Project Director at TES’ Montreal office. As a key member of the team for the last five years, he has developed a keen expertise in community relations, Indigenous and public engagement, and the facilitation of multiparty committees, particularly in the
context of resource extraction and development. Isaac holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from McGill University and a Master’s degree in Environment from the Université de Sherbrooke. Perfectly bilingual, Isaac shares his time working on Quebec and Ontario projects.

igauthier@transfertconsult.ca

514 686-0521


Dominic Vézina

Project Director

Dominic excels in projects that bring people together. Versatile, attentive and open-minded, he is hardworking and loves new challenges. Dominic has over 15 years of professional experience in international relations, strategic consulting, project management and facilitation. He has worked in different industrial sectors and has lived and worked abroad for more than 10 years. Dominic is also an experienced interpreter, translator and facilitator and speaks 6 languages. Throughout his career, Dominic has led complex transition projects involving multiple geographically and culturally diverse stakeholders, which he continues doing at Transfert. ​ He holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, a Certificate in European Political Studies from IEP Strasbourg in France and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Université de Montreal in Quebec, Canada.

dvezina@transfertconsult.ca

514 348-8827


Sophie-Anne-Legendre

Director of Communication

Sophie-Anne, a skilled strategic communications expert, has nearly two decades of solid experience, mainly acquired in the field she’s passionate about: the environment. Her unwavering commitment is to always strive for excellence in order to build a better future for generations to come. Her background includes key roles in crisis and change management, public and government relations, outreach, philanthropy and strategic partnerships. Backed by these rich experiences, she has a solid academic background, including a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from Université de Montréal and a Master’s degree in Environment from UQAM. Sophie-Anne is thus an essential figure in the dynamics of environmental transition.

slegendre@transfertconsult.ca

514 348-8827