I am an environmental consultant, too. You're correct that they often re-route or change their designs based on habitat, though this isn't always the case. They can determine if the impact is major, or if it can be reversed or off-set. An example would be a mine that goes through woodland caribou habitat. They'll still mine the fuck out of it, but then they'll be required to reclaim it back to what it was. The rub is that people think reclamation is a fast or sure thing, but it's neither. Some ecosystems, like those that support caribou are really hard to re-establish, but operators can get on with a commitment to restore, and a couple of contingencies in case the reclamation doesn't work.

@terranoid@lemmy.cafe yes, this is a thing in consulting, but often with the smaller, more cowboy firms. Bigger firms can push back a bit, and say 'hey, look. we really don't recommend this, here's the risks' or flat refuse service if they can take the hit.

@owsei@programming.dev yes, generally, consultants are hired to do things like rare plant surveys or wildlife sweeps. It's not the EPA or other regulators doing this and the operators don't have the capacity or expertise to do it themselves usually.

There's probably some grossly underfunded and under staffed auditing organization that has no teeth but makes everyone who's not really paying attention feel better.