About us
BlueSeeds was born in 2018 following an alarming observation: the existence of a financing gap of 700 million euros for Mediterranean marine protected areas which were operating with only 12% of their financial needs covered in 2015 (Binet et al., 2015).
In recent years, many economists and scientists have been warning about the lack of funding for conservation in general, and marine conservation in particular. Today, on a global scale, between 598 and 824 billion USD per year are needed to reach the 30×30 objective of protecting 30% of our natural terrestrial and marine environments by 2030: an imperative if we are to effectively slow down the loss of biodiversity. In other words, current funding only covers 16 to 19% of global conservation needs (Deutz et al., 2020).
BlueSeeds works with conservation practitioners to ensure the sustainability of their projects through two levers: long-term financing solutions, and increasing management effectiveness.
We are a multidisciplinary team with expertise in economics and finance, marine biology, management, international relations and education. These areas of expertise intersect and allow us to develop new conservation models.
Thomas Binet
Thomas funded BlueSeeds in 2018. He defines the company's strategy.
Thomas Binet
Thomas holds a PhD in Marine Environmental Economics (Portsmouth, UK) and is an agricultural engineer from AgroParisTech. Specialised in the management of marine natural resources, he has worked as an analyst at the OECD and the Institute for European Environmental Policy in London on European fisheries policies.
He was a researcher at the Centre for Aquatic Resource Economics and Management at the University of Portsmouth. He is interested in innovative ways to reconcile nature and economy, by taking biodiversity into account in development strategies, approaches to bio-inspired economics, and financing mechanisms for the conservation of marine ecosystems.
Already founder and director of Vertigo Lab, a consultancy firm in Environmental Economics, Thomas is also the founder of BlueSeeds.
Marie-Aude Sévin Allouet
Marie-Aude supervises the development and implementation of BlueSeeds' projects, and coordinates the activities.
Marie-Aude Sévin Allouet
Marie-Aude has been working on marine environment issues since 2009. She started working on the field, on the West Coast of Madagascar, with local communities and carried out scientific studies on MPAs for the BlueVentures NGO.
Her experience at the French Marine Protected Areas Agency on the French MPA policies or as manager for the 3rd International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC3) allowed her to acquire strong knowledge in international and regional objectives for protecting marine environments.
At the French Biodiversity Agency, she was working on MPA and climate change, cooperation with other countries and international institutions such as the IUCN, the UNESCO and the MPA networks.
In addition, in December 2016, she was elected for 3 years Chair of the “Sea and Coastal” Working Group of the Protected Area Commission at the French Committee of the IUCN. She left her mandate and joined the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation in May 2017 bringing her holistic and integrated approaches to tackle Mediterranean marine and coast conservation challenges: create dialogue, think differently, bring innovation and knowledge coming from the global programme of the IUCN, its membership and from partners from the Mediterranean and abroad.
Marie-Aude joined the BlueSeeds team as Director of Operations to supervise and coordinate the whole activities.
Fanny Galibardy
Fanny is in charge of the administrative management. She coordinates the company's human and financial resources.
Fanny Galibardy
Fanny is a geologist by training and has practiced this profession for 5 years in Luxembourg. Groundwater protection, soil remediation, geotechnical soil investigation and natural risk management… She combined these many facets of the business with more administrative support for the management team around ISO 9001 and CSR certification.
Back in France, she decided to retrain and used her experience to take on the role of executive assistant in a young SME involved in agroecology.
Fanny joined BlueSeeds in January 2023 as an office manager with the aim of supporting the team in their mission to protect marine protected areas.
Guillaume Le Port
Guillaume advises and develops sustainable financing solutions for protected area managers.
Guillaume Le Port
Guillaume holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Sustainable Development from the Institut Catholique de Paris.
Initially specialized in economic valuation of ecosystem services provided by coral reefs, he worked for four years in French Polynesia for IFRECOR and CRIOBE research projects, as well as for several international programs (BfN, IUCN). Thereafter, he focused on cost/benefit analysis of marine protected areas, notably through a Pew Charitable Trust project. At the same time, he also supervised a monitoring program for green sea turtle egg-laying sites and taught at the University of French Polynesia.
Having joined Vertigo Lab in January 2018, Guillaume has actively worked on the development and structuring of BlueSeeds. Within the consultancy firm, he has worked on several projects related to marine conservation finance.
Camille Crété
Camille is developing our Blue Business Incubator, an incubator for blue entrepreneurship in remote coastal regions.
Camille Crété
Camille graduated from Sciences Po Bordeaux with a Master of International Relations and has a Bachelor’s degree in political science.
She has been interested in environmental issues since her youth. Her commitment to the subject led her to do an internship at the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, in Paris. There, she had the opportunity to work on the organization of the IUCN World Conservation Congress and the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15).
Camille joined the BlueSeeds team in September 2021 as a project manager. She has worked on the implementation of self-financing mechanisms for marine protected areas as well as on the logic of blue entrepreneurship with local communities.
Timothée Cook
Timothée develops the scientific bases of BlueSeeds' projects and trains conservation managers in management effectiveness.
Timothée Cook
Tim is a marine biologist with a doctorate in ecology from the University of La Rochelle on the ecology of seabirds of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories.
He worked for five years at the University of Cape Town on the interactions between fisheries and marine predators in the Benguela upwelling. In parallel, he collaborated on other projects such as the study of the direct effects of global warming on seabirds, the study of sea snake ecology in the Pacific Ocean, or the identification of marine areas of high conservation priority in the Persian Gulf.
Back to France, Timothée lectured ecology for 3 years in Paris at the Marie Curie University, then to future wildlife technicians (BTS Gestion et Protection de la Nature at the EGPN). He then worked as a researcher for BLOOM, an NGO where he studied the role of European subsidies in the degradation of marine resources in southern countries. Timothée joined BlueSeeds in September 2020 as a Science Officer.
Yousr Ben Fadhel
Yousr is developing our mooring management tool BlueMooring and supports conservation site managers in its deployment onsite.
Yousr Ben Fadhel
Yousr has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration she obtained at the Franco-American Institute in Management in Paris. She also obtained a double degree in health management and clinical research.
She worked in the pharmaceutical industry on international projects such as the introduction of innovative technologies in information systems; then as a Business Developer, Country Manager and Sector Director for digital start-ups in varied sectors such as facility services and tourism.
Entrepreneur at heart, she obtained the 2019 Silver Eco Prize for her initiative on ageing well. Her project on transport solutions for persons with reduced mobility in Africa also won the Innovation prize.
The Mediterranean is part of her DNA. She spent her childhood in the Tunisian Sahel, where some fishers own parcels of the waters: this particularity is only found in Tunisia.
Yousr joined the BlueSeeds adventure in August 2021 as the Project Officer for the mooring management solution
Alvise Ca'Zorzi
Alvise is working on the technical development of our mooring management tool BlueMooring and other projects.
Alvise Ca’Zorzi
Alvise graduated in International Relations and then spent 2 sabbatical years travelling around South East Asia and Australia. He discovered scuba diving, and following some dives in MPAs, he decided to obtain the Divemaster certification to continue travelling and working as a diving instructor.
After this trip, he returned to France to complete a Master’s degree in Project and Programme Management at Skema Business School to work on the management and financing of marine conservation projects, which he completed through an internship with us.
Alvise is now working at BlueSeeds as a project officer on improving mooring management and visitor flow control in protected sites through our BlueMooring web app, as well as on other projects.
Margaux Janin
Margaux coordinates the secretariat of Together for the Med, a network of 50 organisations working to reduce fishing pressure in the Mediterranean.
Margaux Janin
Margaux first graduated from Emlyon Business School with a master in management and worked 3 years in marketing in startups, both in-house and as a consultant. She then plunged into marine conservation with a second master in Coastal and marine management, obtained from the University of Akureyri, Iceland.
She specialised in marine economics thanks to a master thesis developed together with the IFREMER on the use and socio-economics impact of moored fish aggregating device in Guadeloupe. In 2020, she also worked for EUCC-Coastal Union Germany on an Interreg project on beack wrack before joining Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), an NGO dedicated to responsible aquaculture.
She joined the BlueSeeds team in March 2023 to coordinate Together for the Med, a network of 46 partners dedicated to sustainable fishing and marine protection in the Mediterranean.
Pierre Coan
Pierre oversees BlueSeeds' digital communications and visual design for varied productions.
Pierre Coan
Pierre holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications Sciences from the Université Bordeaux Montaigne and a Master’s degree in Administration with a specialisation in marketing communication from the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada.
He worked for three years in the music industry, where he coordinated digital marketing for an independent classical record label in Montreal.
He joined BlueSeeds in May 2021 as a digital communication officer. Thanks to his multidisciplinary communication skills, including strategic communication, digital marketing and infographics, he works to develop BlueSeeds’ visibility both online and offline, and promotes the company’s conservation projects.
Camille Richer
Camille is in charge of our association BlueMove, which fosters the ecological transition of Mediterranean small-scale fishers.
Camille Crété
Camille graduated from Sciences Po Bordeaux with a Master of International Relations and has a Bachelor’s degree in political science.
She has been interested in environmental issues since her youth. Her commitment to the subject led her to do an internship at the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, in Paris. There, she had the opportunity to work on the organization of the IUCN World Conservation Congress and the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15).
Camille joined the BlueSeeds team in September 2021 as a project manager. She has worked on the implementation of self-financing mechanisms for marine protected areas as well as on the logic of blue entrepreneurship with local communities.
Camille Richer
Camille gradauated from Kedge Business School in Bordeaux with a Master’s degree in audit, financial control and law. She started her career in the United States in investment banking in 2007. The subprime crisis made her realise that she wanted to contribute to a different kind of economy, one that respects people and the planet.
Within the Entrepreneurs du Monde’s network, a French NGO, she developped extensive experience in financial inclusion and a genuine belief in the power of entrepreneurship. She contributed to the creation and developpment of Microfinance Solidaire, which now finances 20 organisations in 14 countries with a total portfolio of €11 million.
Camille is driven by a deep sense of purpose to create lasting social and environmental impact.
Camille is now responsible for the development of BlueMove, a pre-financing mechanism for small-scale fishermen.
Yousr Ben Fadhel
Yousr is developing our mooring management tool BlueMooring and supports conservation site managers in its deployment onsite.
Yousr Ben Fadhel
Yousr has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration she obtained at the Franco-American Institute in Management in Paris. She also obtained a double degree in health management and clinical research.
She worked in the pharmaceutical industry on international projects such as the introduction of innovative technologies in information systems; then as a Business Developer, Country Manager and Sector Director for digital start-ups in varied sectors such as facility services and tourism.
Entrepreneur at heart, she obtained the 2019 Silver Eco Prize for her initiative on ageing well. Her project on transport solutions for persons with reduced mobility in Africa also won the Innovation prize.
The Mediterranean is part of her DNA. She spent her childhood in the Tunisian Sahel, where some fishers own parcels of the waters: this particularity is only found in Tunisia.
Yousr joined the BlueSeeds adventure in August 2021 as the Project Officer for the mooring management solution
