Elittoral is a company made up of young professionals in environmental, marine and coastal consultancy. It was founded in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in July 2007 with the aim of satisfying the demand of studies related with Canary Islands coast, but with a clear international vocation.
“As a consequence of the 2011 crisis we made a big bet on internationalization, what caused that we started carrying out projects in Mauritania, Algeria and Morocco in 2012. This allowed us to improve our turnover and, above all, to get the necessary trust to believe in the international reality”.
The company, without neglecting the regional and national market, launched an important internationalization campaign allocating substantial resources, both human and material, in order to reach the objectives proposed. This campaign focused on Latin America, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The main strategy performed by Elittoral was based on, on the one hand, deciding which foreign markets they were interested in approaching to, and, on the other hand, determining what actions or activities this commercial operation would be divided in.
“Commercial research trips to those countries in which they could have greater chances of success and participation in international recruitment procedures, protected by multilateral organizations. Likewise, we consider that it is essential to take part in cooperation projects, as well as making strategic alliance with research groups and development administrations, which belong both to services and to R&D&I activities”.
Elittoral has developed projects in different countries, as Ecuador, El Salvador and Algeria, among others.
In 2015 they were consolidated in foreign markets, especially because of the opening of a subsidiary in Ecuador. In that year, in a consortium with a local company, this subsidiary was awardee of a project funded by the IDB and operated by the Ministry of Environment of Ecuador. From this project, so-called “Benthic and ecosystem mapping in Six Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (AMCP’s) and Four Areas of Possible Expansion”, they obtained a detailed cartography of the biological communities located in ten marine areas of the country. The project was launched between April 2015 and June 2016, and the extension studied and mapped was 82000 hectares.
“In the same way, in February 2016 we signed a contract with PNUD Guatemala to develop the project “Creation of a computer system for strengthening the decision-making on biodiversity and coastal marine protected areas”. This is a strategic project from the point of view of the conservation of marine species of the Guatemalan Pacific, since as a final result we will obtain a computer system that will serve as repository, storage and interpretation of marine data at the national level. This system is being developed according to the Guatemalan administrations related with the marine environment”.
“At the national level, in June 2016, we signed a contract with the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) to study the state of Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa prairies, which are present along the entire Catalan coast. The results obtained about the state of these prairies will be used, also, to rate the quality of the masses of water in which they are present, following the instructions of the Water Framework Directive. The duration of this contract is 3 years”.
“From the point of view of equipment and accreditations, in the last years we have acquired several oceanographic equipments for updating the pre-existing ones, improving the services that we provide to our clients. In the same vein, throughout 2016 we have worked for preparing the company to obtain the accreditation in the Standard UNE-EN ISO / IEC 17020: 2012 Conformity assessment. Currently, we are in the final stages for getting the aforementioned accreditation, foreseeing to have it available in December 2016. From that moment we will become part of the list of Collaborating Entities of the Administration”.
Rosana Álvarez Vázquez / Óscar Bergasa López
Directores de elittoral
Tel: 928 45 70 87
Mail: ralvarez@elittoral.es /obergasa@elittoral.es
Web: www.elittoral.es
It’s an absolute role model about internationalization.: Elittoral: Una empresa canaria de ingeniería y gestión costera participa en un proyecto en la costa pacífica de Guatemala para la estabilización de las playas
Translated by Miguel A. Díez Tellez/ Laura Falcón Gil, 28 March 2017
