Biochar from smallholder farmers - The solution for large scale carbon removal credits
and significant social impact.

@KlimatelinK has chosen biochar as one of its leading topics to be widely promoted to KlimatelinK members by our biochar community to other communities and members.

We have asked two of our leading biochar partners Carbonfuture and Biochar Life to present their respective ventures. Each and together are pioneers and somewhat disruptors in the biochar and carbon removal certificates value chain.

Biochar Life helps smallholder farmers with sustainable agriculture and livestock practices using biochar. Their programme help improve farmers' lives and the surrounding communities by generating additional income via the sales of carbon removal credits. Biochar Life is one of the high integrity carbon removal practitioners that KlimatelinK has selected this year. Biochar Life helps companies compensate for their carbon emissions while being reassured to have a meaningful social impact.

Carbonfuture is one of the first platforms that sell certified biochar-based carbon removal certificates including those supplied by Biochar Life. Carbonfuture has been successful in engaging companies to meet their environmental goals while providing significant support to biochar producers and traders throughout the world.

Please note that KlimatelinK would recommend investments in high integrity voluntary carbon removal certificates only to organisations that have demonstrated their actions towards a netzero journey.

Biochar Life and Carbonfuture are members of the International Biochar Initiative and their carbon -sink credits are certified based on the European Biochar Certificate standards. Access to recording of all past events are available for Friend Plus members.

Note: Biochar is the carbon skeleton of biomass that has been pyrolyzed to between 450⁰c - 550⁰C. Biochar is defined by the International Biochar Initiative as "the solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of biomass in an oxygen-limited environment".Biochar is a stable solid that is rich in carbon and can endure in soil for thousands of years.

The stability of biochar leads to the concept of pyrogenic carbon capture and storage (PyCCS), i.e. carbon sequestration in the form of biochar. Biochar may increase the soil fertility of acidic soils and increase agricultural productivity.

Withdrawing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere has become an essential aspect of efforts to limit climate change. Simply reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – even by more than 90% of their present level – is no longer sufficient to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 – 2°C. However, the active withdrawal of greenhouse gases requires the creation of carbon sinks on a vast scale. By the end of the century, the world needs to have more than 200 billion tonnes of carbon stored long-term in soils, vegetation, materials, waters and geological strata.

For one-third of this sink capacity to be achieved through the use of biochar and pyrolysis oil, around 400,000 pyrolysis systems need to be in operation around the world by 2050.

Sources: Hilaire et al., 2019; Rockström et al., 2017; Werner et al., 2018; Schmidt & Hagemann et al., 2021