With abundant biomass and lower production costs, India and the Global South are emerging as powerhouses in the biochar carbon market — but credibility, equity, and scale are still in question
Can biochar, a form of charcoal, provide a viable means of carbon capture to help India meet its emission goals? The experience of the pastoral nomads of Kachchh in Gujarat suggests that the answer could be yes.
In agricultural circles, biochar has been described as ‘black gold’ due to its dramatic beneficial effects on soils and plant growth. It is a carbon-rich material formed by slow pyrolysis— heating biomass under an oxygen-limited environment so that it does not fully combust. Charcoal is biochar produced from woody biomass. While charcoal from woody biomass is used as fuel, biochar is designed for soil application. Crucially, biochar is highly resistant to decomposition, enabling long-term carbon sequestration.
At a time when India faces growing pressure to cut emissions without stalling its agricultural economy, biochar offers a rare triple advantage — locking away carbon dioxide, restoring degraded soils, and creating new income streams for rural communities. As demand for credible carbon removal solutions rises worldwide, countries in the Global South like India are increasingly being seen as vital players, not only because of their abundant biomass resources, but also because lower production costs and direct reliance on carbon credits make biochar projects more financially viable here than in the Global North.
Challenges, however, remain around scalability, certification costs, ensuring consistent biochar quality, and integrating small producers into complex carbon markets. Even so, as India seeks climate solutions rooted in its rural economy, biochar’s growing role in carbon removal presents a promising — although imperfect — path forward. Although biochar producers are optimistic about the growth of the artisan biochar production sector, the absence of a clear national biochar policy has created a great deal of uncertainty. That the government is interested in biochar as a way of carbon sequestration was clear from a seminar on biochar, which was organised by the National Institute of Small and Medium enterprises in 2023 in collaboration with the International Biochar Initiative.
How biochar captures carbon — and rebuilds soil
The Kachchh nomads were faced with an ecological challenge. They found that grasslands on which their livestock foraged were rapidly being swallowed up by South American mesquite (prosopis juliflora). To reclaim the grasslands, the herders began chopping down the mesquite and pyrolyzing it into charcoal.
Initially, the resulting charcoal was sold mainly to ceramic, tile, limestone, and brick industries in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and exported to Middle Eastern and African markets for domestic and restaurant use.
But a couple of years ago — with the help of non-profit Sahjeevan — the Kachchh nomads began to capitalise on earning carbon credits. Instead of selling the charcoal as fuel, the nomads began ploughing it back into the grassland in the form known as biochar. Like charcoal, biochar, too, contains 70-80% of pure carbon. When put back into the soil and not burnt, it amounts to carbon capture, or what is described as carbon dioxide removal (CDR). By following this process, they cleared 11 sq km of the invasive mesquite, and earned as much as $180,000 by selling the carbon credits generated from biochar production. “It’s a win-win situation,” said Sandeep Virmani, founder president of Sahjeevan who has been working in the region for three decades. Virmani said that an added bonus for the herders was that the biochar improved soil quality, and enhanced its water-retention capacity. This helped raise productivity in the Banni grasslands of Kachchh by 55-75%.
Entering the carbon removal market
This success positioned the Kachchh nomads within the fast-growing carbon market, a key component in the process to achieve net zero. The global voluntary carbon market (VCM) rose to roughly $2 billion dollars in 2022, shrank and then again recovered strongly to reach $4.5 billion in 2025.
The main interlinked elements of the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) market are those who capture carbon, the C-sinks where captured carbon is verified for standards and registered as credits and sold to end users who want to reduce their carbon footprint, either to meet compliance obligations or voluntary commitments. One tonne of CO₂e sequestered is equal to one carbon credit or C-sink unit. Standardisation involves the complete and accurate tracking of feedstock to ensure that only acceptable ones like crop residue, the use of endorsed technology, that the biochar produced has more than 60% carbon and lastly that it has been mixed with compost and applied to the soil, not burnt as fuel.
In Kachchh, the process is straightforward – mesquite first captures carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis, then the biomass from its wood is pyrolyzed to biochar. This, in turn, is mixed with compost and put back into the soil as fertiliser. Most of the organic carbon stays on in the soil for more than 1,000 years, thus permanently removing GHG carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Overcoming certification challenges
Certification to obtain the carbon credits, however, remains a major hurdle for each of the 2,500 biochar producing, herder families. With fees as high as ₹6 lakh, access to credit certification platforms is beyond the reach of small biochar producers, who also have to bear the cost of producing the biochar.
To bridge this gap, Gurgaon-based Varaha Earth trained the herders to follow certification norms, document production through its geo-tagged mobile app, and register the biochar through the Global Biochar Registry. Varaha then shares the collected data with the Global Biochar Registry, which authenticates the carbon credits. Kaushal Bisht, marketing head of Varaha explained, “Datasets were collected that obtained insights into whether that land and green practices were in place.”
Validation of the key characteristics of farms and forests is done by identifying them through remote sensing models using observations from satellite imagery, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and widefield plot network, he said. “High quality carbon credit generation through removed or sequestered greenhouse gas emissions are further converted into high quality carbon credits via third party validation, verification and issuance through Verra and other credible agencies,” said Bisht. The credits are then purchased by institutional buyers interested in offsetting their GHG emissions.
Madhur Jain, co-founder and CEO of Varaha Earth put it clearly thus: “If corn shank or cob (a biomass) is burnt it results in carbon dioxide emissions; if it is left in the open it decomposes into methane. Either way, it’s a problem. But if it is converted into biochar it can be used to enhance soil and, more importantly, the carbon remains in the soil.”
Although the soil enhancement qualities of biochar and its use as an alternative fuel has been known for long, its carbon-sink potential was formally recognised only in 2019 when Finland-based Puro.earth began issuing carbon credits for it. Its certification of biochar guaranteed verifiable and trackable storage of carbon. With this certification biochar entered the carbon market.
Soon, Switzerland-based Ithaka developed its own standards based on which the European Biochar Certification (EBC) followed. In 2021, EBC, Ithaka Institute and private group of certifiers Easy Cert set up Carbon Standards International (CSI) as the nodal C-sink body. Other certification platforms include Verra, the biggest and Gold Standard.
Creating access for small producers
The creation of the Global Artisan Biochar C-Sink in 2022 revolutionised access for small producers. It opened up the potential to use huge amounts of farm residue as feedstock for biochar production in countries like India, and at the same time generate carbon credits.
CSI has estimated that the potential of agricultural waste produced in tropical countries can help remove and sequester at least 800 billion tonnes of CO₂e by the end of the century. In India alone, an estimated 228 tonnes of surplus farm waste is produced every year and about half of it is burnt to clear the fields for the next crop, resulting in severe air pollution. Heavy fines ranging from ₹5,000-30,000 are imposed on farmers in Punjab for burning rice and wheat stalks.
Soon after the Artisan Biochar C-Sink came into existence, companies like Varaha Earth and Pune-based Varhad capitalised on the opportunity of connecting smallholder farmers to the C-Sink. The companies began operations in 2023 to align the farmers producing biochar with the new guidelines made up of a multilayered system of digital monitoring, reporting and verification (dMRV) designed for artisan biochar producers though they adopted different models to go about it.
The use of proper manufacturing and data recording methods enabled the Kachchh nomads to get the carbon removal credits registered on the Global C-sink Registry. The dMRV allows tracking of the biochar right from its origin in biomass feedstock, its quantity and quality and right to the time that it is mixed with compost and ploughed back into the soil and not used as fuel. This is backed up by geolocation and time stamp of measurement. The Varaha data smart phone application is CSI endorsed and has an interface with the Global C-Sink Registry.
Income from trading the credits is shared with the nomads, through Sahjeevan’s help. The Kachchh nomads have not only demonstrated the importance of technology in building kontiki kilns and flame curtain pyrolisers, and connecting through mobile apps, but also shown that biochar produced using low-cost equipment has enough carbon to qualify as carbon capture. Scientific studies dispel doubts about the quality of the biochar produced in kon-tiki kilns, proving that the biochar produced compares favourably with industrial production in terms of the minimum acceptable pure carbon content.
Varhad, which works with a network of farmers cooperatives and producer organisations, has trained 30 kontiki operators who move within a 15 km radius with the kilns and pyrolyze cotton and pigeon pea crop residue into biochar. They also trade 120 kg packs of biochar processed with compost and of the right pH value in return for a tonne of biomass from farmers. Most plants require soils that are slightly acidic or neutral.
Varhad’s chief of staff, Kriti Soni, said her company manufactures the kontiki kilns used for the pyrolysis. “The biochar we produce from the high carbon cotton and pigeon pea stalks enable the capture of 2.6 kg of CO₂e for every kilo of biochar,” said Soni.
Global South: A key source of growth for biochar carbon credits
The biochar market is growing quickly along with the CDR market. While biochar credits formed around 6% of the CDR market in 2023, the sector grew rapidly — from 20.7 kilotonnes of removals in 2020 to 4.5 million tonnes in 2023, with a near-500% CAGR. Driving this market is the fact that more than half the world’s biggest companies have set net-zero targets, says a 2024 EY report.
The carbon market is made up of two major segments – the compliance and voluntary. The compliance market deals with trade in government defined and imposed emission caps while the voluntary market trades in credits issued and registered by private entities or NGOs.
Credits for the voluntary market are generated either through carbon removal — CDR, or reduction using nature-based solutions. The most common VCM carbon credits come from forestry and land use projects. REDD+ projects, which aim to curb climate change by stopping the destruction of forests, make up the majority of transactions in this category. Engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions like Direct Air Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (DACCS) are growing in popularity, with various major companies investing heavily in these technologies. Microsoft, in particular, is a key driver of CDR technology growth, with the U.S. tech giant purchasing millions of CDR credits to offset its carbon emissions in recent years.
In its report, CDR.fyi pointed out that before 2023, North American and European producers dominated the biochar carbon removal market in tonnes sold and delivered. Sold refers to the amount that buyers have contracted to buy while delivered refers to the amount that has been actually supplied till date. However, since the beginning of 2023, there has been a marked increase in biochar carbon removal production in Global South countries.
Now, some of the companies may not have their headquarters in the Global South, but operate in the region. Carboneers, for example, is headquartered in the US, but operates in Northeast India.
According to the location of production, in the period January 2023 to March 2024, six of the top 10 producers were from the Global South. The biggest was Exomad Green from Bolivia, followed by Brazil’s Aperam BioEnergia, and the India-based Carboneers.
In 2025, Varaha became the seventh-biggest producer of biochar in the world with 122,130 tonnes of CO₂e sold and 20,130 tonnes delivered. Exomad, Aperam and Carboneers have retained places. Incidentally, India is among the biggest exporters of carbon credits obtained from the voluntary market, having exported more than 700 million cumulatively since 2003.
According to CDR.fyi, global biochar production in 2023 was 352,304 tonnes that equates to 650,000 tonnes of CO₂e. However, of this only 107,000 tonnes of biochar credits were delivered, mostly because the big biochar producers of Europe and North America could not qualify for credits as they failed to meet the additionality condition.
The Global South is emerging as a key source of growth in the biochar carbon credits due to their low overall production costs and their lack of reliance on the legacy revenue streams of their European and North American counterparts. Unlike producers in Europe and North America, who treat carbon credits as an add-on, many new facilities in Africa, South America, and Asia depend on them as their primary source of income.
Nevertheless, the voluntary carbon market has faced credibility issues, notably with standards body Verra being accused of inflating claims. As a result, initiatives like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI) were launched to enhance transparency and trust.
Some, however, have raised serious objections to all the claims made on behalf of the beneficial effects of biochar. Questions have been raised by Biofuelwatch on three grounds – firstly on the claim that biochar carbon remains sequestered in the soil for a thousand years, saying that this has not been conclusively established. The second objection is with regard to the impact that the addition of biochar may have on the earth’s reflectivity that itself has implications for global warming. The third serious objection raised has been with regard to the deleterious rather than beneficial effect biochar would have on the soil. There is evidence, says Biofuelwatch in a 2011 paper that addition of biochar may actually induce the oxidation of other forms of carbon in the soil to carbon dioxide through microbial activity.
Notwithstanding these initial hiccups, the voluntary carbon market and the role played by biochar is growing (as the data shows) and the drawbacks that have surfaced should be looked into to help devise a more credible system. For Global South countries such as India, biochar production holds out the promise of a three-fold advantage — removal of GHG carbon dioxide helping in meeting net-zero commitments, reduction of air pollution from crop residue burning and soil improvement leading to higher agricultural yields.
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