Despite promises, mines financed by French banks and a World Bank subsidiary are ravaging the environment in Guinea. This greenwashing operation has made the fortune of the French firm Biotope, which advises both the government and the mining companies.
The third article of our GreenFakes series takes us to northwestern Guinea, which has become a red hell. This red colour is from bauxite, the primary ore of aluminum, which is used to make our cars, planes and soda cans. To extract the bauxite, the vegetation has to be razed, and the ground blasted with dynamite. All that remains is a stony, barren desert. The red dust released during mining and transportation infiltrates everything and settles everywhere, polluting the air, water, and vegetation in the surrounding area.
The situation has been getting worse since 2015, when Malaysia and Indonesia cut bauxite exports because of the environmental damage caused by the mines. Guinea, one of the world’s fifteen poorest countries, took up the slack and quadrupled its production, with dramatic consequences for the local population, as documented by the NGOs Human Rights Watch, CECIDE and FIAN. The consequences are also dire for the animals that used to live in the area, including the critically endangered West African chimpanzee.
Officially, however, these bauxite mines have no negative impact on biodiversity. That’s what the World Bank and the major French banks that financed them claim. A French consultancy firm, Biotope, has played a major role in this greenwashing operation, multiplying lucrative consultancy missions for both the Guinean government and the mining companies, despite conflicts of interest. These are the findings of our latest GreenFake investigation, based on confidential Biotope documents obtained by the NGO Climate Whistleblowers.
The area between the towns of Boké and Sangaredi is the epicenter of the bauxite boom, following extensions granted in 2016 and 2019 to two giant mining companies. One is the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), controlled by the Guinean government with 51% shareholding, and three multinationals, Rio Tinto, Alcoa and Dadco, controlling the rest. The other is the Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC), which is owned by mining giant BHP Billiton (33.3%), Global Alumina (33,3%), DUBAL – the Dubai Aluminium Company (25%), and Mubadala, a state owned company of the Abu Dhabi government (8.33%).
These two megaprojects were made possible by loans totalling $1.5 billion, including over $300 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of the World Bank, and several hundred million dollars from private banks, led by France’s BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and Natixis.
This is where Biotope comes in. In 2016, this French firm, which specializes in biodiversity studies, created the COMBO initiative, which aims precisely to help governments in four African countries to implement “biodiversity offsetting”, while at the same time helping companies comply with the PS6 standard. This is a not-for-profit project, co-financed by Biotope, the French government (via the Agence Française de Développement), NGOs, and the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, a shareholder in the Guinean mining company CBG.
For Biotope, COMBO is, above all, an ideal tool for boosting its business, in part due to French public funding.
IFC has guaranteed that the mines will be “green”: it carried out the environmental and social review. The IFC also included in the financing contracts compliance with a standard of its own design, known as PS6. In theory, it requires mining companies to cause no “net loss” of biodiversity and even a “net gain” for “critical habitats” inhabited by protected species.
On the face of it, this is no easy task: the CBG mine alone will destroy 3,200 hectares of land with environmental significance, not counting the associated roads and railroad, according to the official assessment report. To comply with the PS6 standard, this damage will have to be compensated for, for example by replanting forests elsewhere.
In October 2016, the project was launched in Guinea under the patronage of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank subsidiary that orchestrated the financing of the CBG mine two months earlier. For Guinea, this is a godsend, as Biotope’s advice under COMBO is free of charge.
As a result, the Guinean government gave the French firm a key role on the committee responsible for drawing up the national strategy for offsetting the impact of mining on biodiversity. However, Biotope has a major conflict of interest: it is also advising the “Réseau Environnement Bauxite”, an organization set up by several mining companies, including CBG and GAC, to finance offsetting.
Guinea’s national strategy includes two projects that are destined to converge. The first is the creation of the Moyen-Bafing national park in the north of the country. In 2017, CBG and GAC agreed to fund the park with $48 million to offset the negative impact of their mines on chimpanzees.
In January 2019, during a seminar at the Petit Bateau Hotel in Conakry, Biotope proposed a second idea: the creation of a Conservation Trust Fund, financed mainly by companies, to fund the protection of natural areas.
At the end of 2020, the Ministry of the Environment launched a 100,000-euro consultancy mission financed by the World Bank to help set up this conservation fund. The tender was won by Biotope.
This award is likely to violate the World Bank’s procurement rules, which proscribe any “unfair competitive advantage” and, more specifically, the fact that consultants profit from “past services” linked to the assignment they have been awarded. Contacted on this subject, the World Bank and the Guinean government indicate that procedures have been respected.
In September 2021, a military coup overthrew Guinean President Alpha Condé. Biotope’s mission was paused, in accordance with World Bank rules. It resumed in 2022, following an amendment signed by the new government, now controlled by the military junta of Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, who proclaimed himself as “transitional president”.
In December 2024, the Guinean government awarded Biotope a new consultancy contract to set up the conservation fund without a call for tenders. The contract cost 518,800 euros, and the World Bank still paid for it.
However, this fund, meant to be one of the flagship measures of Guinea’s national policy to compensate for the impact of bauxite mining, is still not operational after four years of studies.
The national park, which is supposed to be a sanctuary, is threatened by mining concessions and a dam project that could swallow up a large part of the forest.
The World Bank points out that, since Biotope had carried out the first study, it was not out of the ordinary to choose the French firm without a call for tenders for the second study to ensure ‘continuity of service’. The bank specifies that the fund’s creation is scheduled for November 2025.
The second project, the Moyen-Bafing National Park, was created in May 2021, just before the coup d’état. However, it is insufficient. It was not meant to repair all the destruction of natural areas by CBG and CAG, but to compensate for the impact of their mines on endangered chimpanzees.
According to a report published in October 2021 by the NGO Re:Wild and the chimpanzee expert group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), this minimal goal is not even being met.
The report stresses that it is “unlikely that CBG and GAC will achieve a net gain in the chimpanzee population over twenty years”, for several reasons. The first is that the national park, which is supposed to be a sanctuary, is threatened by mining concessions and a proposed dam, which could swallow up much of the forest. When asked about this subject, the Ministry of Mines assured us that the dam will “only affect a relatively small area of the park’s integral protection zone”.
The report considers it probable that the two companies have underestimated the loss of chimpanzees caused by their mines (estimated at a maximum of 143 individuals) and the amount of compensation required as a result. The experts add that the promised payment is not sufficient to fund the national park in the long term.
Worse still, CBG and GAC are reluctant to release the first installments despite “repeated requests.” According to a Mediapart estimate, the $48 million over twenty years they had promised to pay represents less than 0.1% of their revenues over the period.
The report also criticizes the IFC, the World Bank subsidiary that orchestrated the financing of the bauxite mines. In the loan agreements, the IFC made the companies promise that a “net gain” in biodiversity would be achieved for protected species but did not include “an obligation for CBG and GAC to make immediate and regular offset payments.”
The Ministry of Mines replied that the problem has been resolved and that the two companies have paid $24.3 million to date. The Ministry claims that the park will offset the mines’ impact on the chimpanzees and contribute to the “preservation of thousands of species.”
CBG and GAC did not respond when contacted by Mediapart. The IFC states that companies are not required to comply immediately with the PS6 standard on no biodiversity loss but only “after a reasonable period of time”. Their full response is at the end of this article. This is still not the case today. The latest GAC assessment report even states that the mining company is in a situation of “long-term non-compliance,” with fourteen breaches of the rules identified. CBG, for its part, is trying to rehabilitate the areas it has finished mining, but is finding it very difficult, as there is not enough soil available to cover the ground.
Non-compliance with standards is also mentioned in a complaint filed in 2019 with the IFC ombudsman by 540 residents of thirteen Guinean villages. They denounce the destruction of their environment and livelihoods by CBG’s mines. The IFC launched a mediation process, but five years later, it has still not been completed.
The French banks that co-financed the projects are not moved by this situation. Their full responses are at the end of this article. BNP Paribas has not replied. Société Générale replied that it has a policy of not providing information on “specific operations”. Natixis claims to carry out “in-depth monitoring” of the environmental compliance of its mines, without indicating the results. The same goes for Crédit Agricole, which claims to receive “regular” reports but refuses to provide them.
For its part, Biotope has benefited greatly from its work with the Guinean government. From the spring of 2021, the firm’s activity in the country exploded, with more than 2 million euros worth of contracts won from new mining companies in two years, according to internal documents.
At the end of 2021, Biotope even opened a subsidiary in Guinea with five full-time employees, to carry out a mission for a very problematic customer: the Chinese-Singaporean consortium WCS, one of the two operators of the Simandou mine located in the east of the country, along with a company controlled by the Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.
When it opens in late 2025, Simandou will be the world’s largest iron ore mine, producing 60 million tons a year. However, NGOs grouped together in the Simandou Aware coalition are critiquing this colossal $20 billion investment. They point to major risks for the environment, the local population, water pollution, and wildlife. The mine is located in a hitherto unspoiled, landlocked area of forest, home to numerous protected species, including critically endangered chimpanzees.
WCS and Rinto Tinto have promised to meet the IFC’s PS6 standard, i.e., to cause no net loss of biodiversity. However, NGOs disagree with the conclusions of their preparatory studies.
The two mine blocks and the construction of a 670-kilometer railway line linking Simandou to the ocean will destroy hundreds of hectares of natural areas. According to the NGO Action Mines Guinée and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s expert group, the railway project has already caused pollution and negative impacts on local residents and chimpanzees.
In its latest impact report, published in April 2024, Rio Tinto acknowledges that despite its efforts, the project will have a negative impact on biodiversity, in particular on West African chimpanzees and critical habitats hosting endangered species. To comply with the PS6 standard, Rio Tinto promises to implement “an offset strategy,” particularly with regard to chimpanzees.
Biotope was initially hired by WCS in March 2021 to carry out the biodiversity impact study for the railway line, for 1.2 million euros. The mission was extended to the mine in 2022, to calculate the extent of its ecological impact and quantify the necessary “compensation”. A “huge job” in prospect, with “probably a very large estimate of several million”, as Biotope boasts at an internal meeting in October 2022. The French firm is actively seeking “compensation sites” – natural areas whose protection the mining giants could finance.
But relations with WCS appear to be difficult. In December 2022, Biotope estimated that “many additional studies” were needed “to recalculate the impacts on chimpanzees and […] to requantify the ecological debt of the project”. This suggests that the negative impact may have been underestimated at the outset.
According to an internal memo, at a working meeting held in Paris in 2023 on the Simandou project with WCS, Rio Tinto, and the NGO World Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF), Biotope’s consultant had to make a “strong assertion of our positions with regard to chimpanzee approaches. ” Clearly, mining groups don’t seem very motivated to protect this endangered species. When contacted about this meeting, WCS did not respond. Rio Tinto formally denies this and states that according to its minutes of the meeting, Biotope “did not reaffirm its position on chimpanzees in response to reluctance” from the mining companies present.
Biotope’s reports have not been published. Two years after the mission was entrusted to the French firm, no compensation project has been announced.
Why the delay? Biotope, WCF, WCS did not respond to our questions.
In its response to Mediapart, the Guinean Ministry of Mines states that WCS and Rio Tinto had recently submitted plans to compensate for biodiversity losses. Rio Tinto told us, however, that it still needs to carry out additional studies, and that it would be able to unveil the sites selected for compensation at the end of 2025 or early 2026.
The mining group adds that it is “fully aligned” with the PS6 standard. The Ministry of Mines adds that “the Simandou project has been subject to rigorous application of all national and international environmental standards, including IFC performance standards”, and that efforts continue to be made in the field to ensure “strict compliance”.
Black box
When contacted by Mediapart, Biotope, Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Compagnie des bauxites de Guinée (CBG), Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC), Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS) and World Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) did not respond.
The World Bank and its subsidiary Société financière internationale (SFI), the Guinean Ministry of Mines, Rio Tinto, Société générale, Natixis and Crédit agricole replied in writing. Their full replies are available in the appendices to this article.
Rio Tinto Statement
In constructing the SimFer mine and associated infrastructure, we are fully aligned with IFC Performance Standard 6 (PS6) which is predicated on the Mitigation Hierarchy for biodiversity and requires us to achieve No Net Loss for Natural Habitat and Net Gain for Critical Habitat Qualifying and Range Restricted species through avoidance and mitigation of impact, rehabilitation and offsetting. Details of how we will achieve this are set out in SimFer’s ESIA and ESIA update, and we are implementing ongoing adaptive measures to ensure compliance and meet our goals.
We continue to work proactively with the other Simandou partners to support the implementation of IFC Performance Standard 6 across the project. – Rio Tinto Spokesperson
MediaPart: The latest version of the ESIA, published in April 2024, says, page 40, that the mine will destroy 6400 hectares of natural areas – without counting the railway project, that will destroy at least 600 hectares.
Rio Tinto: This is incorrect – this is the mine area (i.e. the area where people are excluded from, but not all of it will not all be cleared.
MediaPart: Do you confirm that as of today, the Simandou project does not respect the PS6 standard?
Rio Tinto: This is incorrect (see above)
MediaPart: Did you calculate the negative impacts on biodiversity? Can you state what they are?
Rio Tinto: Yes, we calculated our predicted negative impacts as part of the mitigation hierarchy and IFC PS6. The calculations and methods to predict our impacts and our measures taken to address them are outlined extensively in the ESIA and ESIA update.
MediaPart: How do you explain that in 2024, the biodiversity offsetting program was not ready? Is it ready today, and if yes, what is it? Please explain and the offsetting commitments taken by Rio Tinto, and how they could achieve no net loss for biodiversity and a net gain for critical habitats?
Rio Tinto: We are implementing our biodiversity offsets programme as per IFC PS6 guidelines. This mandates that we first quantify our residual impact i.e., remaining impact after avoiding and minimizing as much impact as possible (see mitigation hierarchy for more details), then restoring habitats are far as practicable. The remaining impact is classified as ‘residual’ and this is where offsets are required.
We are currently finalizing our residual impact assessment described in detail in the ESIA update (April 2024) but have concurrently been assessing potential offset sites as per IFC PS6. These sites require a full feasibility assessment to understand if they are viable. These assessments must span both the wet and the dry seasons to understand the true extent of biodiversity. Given that they usually take up to one year to complete (and even longer in the case of certain species) we have begun these now, rather than wait for the residual impact calculations to be finalized. In doing this, we will be in the position for some areas of the mine e.g. Pic de Fon deposit, where we will be offsetting for our impact long before that impact occurs. This is an outcome we have been advised as strongly desirable under IFC PS6 but nevertheless an industry first in Africa. When the feasibility assessments have been completed at the end of 2025 / early 2026 we will be able to share all the various sites selected to meet the IFC PS6 offsetting criteria.
As the Rio Tinto Simfer mine is completely aligned with IFC PS6, we advise that you consult the performance standard guidelines to understand the offsetting commitments Rio Tinto has made, how these achieve No Net Loss for Natural Habitat and Net Gain for Critical Habitat Qualify and Range Restricted Species.
MediaPart: Is it accurate and do you wish to comment? Did Rio Tinto and/or Simfer hire Biotope to conduct biodiversity assessments?
Rio Tinto: This is inaccurate. Biotope were not and had not been under contract with Rio Tinto or Simfer in 2022.
MediaPart: Is it accurate and do you wish to comment? Could you please describe the discussions during this meeting?
Rio Tinto: This is inaccurate. The meeting in Paris was a continuation of the engagement on offsets which started at the end of 2022, there were no representatives present from the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, nor did Biotope, as per our minutes, reaffirm their position on Chimpanzees in response to any reluctance from any organisations present.
MediaPart: What has been the outcome of Biotope’s work on Simandou’s biodiversity impact and biodiversity offsets? Why has this report from Biotope not been published?
Rio Tinto: Biotope have not at any point been managed by SimFer or Rio Tinto.
“GreenFakes” is a series of investigations conducted by Mediapart, published in partnership with Mongabay and Africa Uncensored. They are based on internal documents from Biotope, leading French ecological auditing firm, obtained by Climate Whistleblowers, an organization specializing in the protection of climate and environmental whistleblowers.
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