Biochar is an increasingly global carbon removal pathway. What does it look like to do business in Ghana and India? What does it mean for biochar to be decentralized?
Mart de Bruijn is the Co-Founder and Director of Carboneers, a Dutch biochar company working to implement carbon removal solutions in India and Ghana.
The conversation covers the challenges of securing enthusiastic participation from local farmers, navigating cultural and regulatory landscapes, and the technical aspects of biochar production. Additionally, the episode sheds light on the crucial role of monitoring, reporting, and verification in ensuring the efficacy of carbon credits, alongside the future expansion plans and potential bottlenecks faced by distributed/decentralized carbon removal systems.
This episode is hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Carbon Removal Newsroom, a weekly show about current events in the world of carbon removal, from technology and innovation to policymaking and job growth. Brought to you by Nori, the carbon removal marketplace.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Hello and welcome to the May 7th edition of Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Radhika Mulgothkar, VP of Supply and Methodology at Nori. Many potential bottlenecks could slow the growth of the carbon removal industry. A significant yet under-discussed issue is the lack of enthusiasm or sometimes outright opposition from local communities towards carbon removal projects. This has sparked interest on this show in speaking with CDR entrepreneurs and practitioners who are actively engaging the local communities where they operate. We’ve recently explored experiences with public acceptance through discussions with carbon removal organizations in the global south, such as InPlanet in Brazil, Octavia in Kenya, and Carbon Removal India Alliance.
The insights gained from these early engagements could be crucial as carbon removal efforts continue to scale. Today, we’re diving into another such company with Carboneers who are working to bring the benefits of carbon removal to rural agricultural communities. Based in Amsterdam, Carboneers is selling carbon credits generated by their decentralized biochar products in Odisha and Assam in India and in the Upper West and Volta regions in Ghana. They partner with local implementers to convert agricultural biomass into biochar, which enhances soil fertility, sequesters carbon, and generates carbon credits. Their projects in India and Ghana aim to sequester 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2024.
So today I’m welcoming to the show Carboneers co-founder, Mart Dubreuil, whose name I probably just butchered. Sorry, Mart.
Mart de Bruijn: I give it a seventh.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, thanks for joining us on the show. I want to start just with your general background, your biography notes that you studied economics. And so I’m curious how that led you to focus on CDR and biochar specifically.
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah, indeed. And even more specifically, my master’s was in environmental economics. And in those early days, I had a great teacher explaining us about how we need to reduce drastically our emissions, but it won’t be enough. And that was the first time that I heard about it, that we also need to clean up our emissions, but even in the meantime, to reach our targets also To remove carbon from the atmosphere. But then we never talked about it again, like all the content was about the reductions and about how can we make sure with the ETS system within Europe to reduce that.
And then I find it’s very interesting to take a deep dive into those removals and I saw like a one pager with seven methodologies and biochar was just one of them. Never read about it. And I think I just fell in love with the fact that it’s not only a removal, but also has a great value to apply to the soils. And prior to this business, I had a small business in local foods, so I always was prone to food and supply chains. And then I met up again with my old neighbor, even once my babysitter, and he’s a biologist by background, and he could even better explain me with such a passion about Biochar and its applications.
So yeah, it started with just a passion, not really a business case, but during that summer, we committed to take a role in this market, not knowing which.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I love that story. And I love that your old babysitter is now a partner with you. So let’s kind of dive into your company and what you’re doing. So first of all, maybe you can just describe how a decentralized biochar project works. We’ve had biochar folks on this podcast before, but never ones were doing it with your sort of model.
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah, so you have two separated models. If you take it in extreme, indeed, you have centralized biochar production, which has been our focus in the first year within the European borders to bring biomass together or biomass is already collected to get aggregated because there is a plant processing agricultural production. And you have waste streams. However, in also many cases, especially in the global south, there are also a lot of waste streams still distributed. And in that case, you cannot really justify or afford To have like a big pyrolysis unit and there’s not an infrastructure to do so.
And then you don’t have like a big pyrolysis unit, which you can see on the pictures, but more kind of several solutions that you can handle on village level. And I think I will stop there. How the difference is between those types of production.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Okay, so basically you have taken a gigantic pyrolysis machine and then been able to implement it in smaller locations at the village level, hence it’s decentralized. So, and you mentioned that this is particularly impactful in the Global South because the biomass is more distributed. So why did Carboneers initially get involved in your project locations in India and in Ghana? How did you choose your locations?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah that starts again also with that we started. Within the Netherlands, that was our first goal to develop a project within the Dutch borders. But we had to do some consultancy jobs to pay the bills. And during that time, we saw how complex it was to run a project. And especially in one particular topic, and that was the feedstock. So the biome was that you need to make biochar. And within the European borders, we saw a lot of opportunities. But then most of the time, the price was quite high. And sometimes also on the justification level, do you think that the biochar is the best way to process your waste streams or your biomass, right?
There’s quite a run on biomass waste streams. And yeah, for two young entrepreneurs, that could be quite demotivating. Whereas in the meantime, we got so many approaches from the global south telling us that their feedstock is being wasted at this point in time, like really being wasted. And when I say wasted, they burn it, literally open field on their farms, or they leave it in big piles, 40k. And in parallel with the fact that we also saw that biochar has a way bigger impact on soils, on meta-analysis, we thought, okay, those two cases make it for us easier to think about projects there.
Execution, of course, is differently, but that felt for us like, okay, that’s a solution that can grow big without To justify for yourself that the feedstock is the best solution for IHR, yes or no? And yeah, then we met just one great partner there out of the different leads that we had.
Radhika Moolgavkar: How has it been working in the global south and India particularly? In terms of navigating the different culture, the different maybe permitting.
Mart de Bruijn: That was new to us as we were quite objective. We didn’t have any relationship with India. We just thought that was the best opportunity, but it’s still kind of a learning process, especially if you have buyers on the Western world, right? They are most of the times compensating their emissions And they are demanding on what you need to implement in India. And that’s still an ongoing debate. Okay, what is implementable? And in what way are we honoring the on-ground situation? And till today, I think it has been great learning a lot about those cultures, right?
Also on how strange our culture can be sometimes. But vice versa, the same. As long as there’s the respect, I think we have a great time with both our partners in Ghana and India.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So you were mentioning that these partnerships happen because you just found great partners. But when you’re looking at your implementation partners, what are the criteria that are most important to you as you analyze whether you want to work with them?
Mart de Bruijn: I think it’s along the way that you get to know them. But the first most important question is to also just to focus on your work is to ask about the feedstock because that’s the beginning of biochar production. And then it’s one for us, like in the end, if we take the effort to go to a country, set up projects, There also should be an abundance of feedstock to also further develop projects. So volumes are quite important for us to understand also how it’s distributed, right? Whenever it’s centralized, most of the times could already have a competition of the feedstock.
Then the feedstock itself. So not every feed waste stream, biomass waste stream is processable or processable only with very sophisticated machines. And then even seasonality of feedstock. So there are so many criteria to think about, like whether there’s alternative uses of the feedstock. And then along the way, you get to understand your partner and also what network is aligned with. Those farmers, right? You need to understand what is the relationship between a partner and all those farmers. And then along the way, you understand that the knowledge of your partner has been great in agricultural practices.
Both our partners have a great experience in that supply chain. Even one read the whole methodology like from Third letter till the end. So we were quite impressed in that scenario. And then you also understand whether they can manage such a system because it is different from centralized biochar production, right? You need to understand how to monitor a lot of production units. And then you come to the conclusion that you like the project and you like to work with them because there’s a dynamic. And in the end, you also need kind of a push and assertiveness from your partner because it’s quite a step to go to a random country.
I think both our parents were quite nervous when we went there. So for us, them being quite assertive and us getting there and just to start was like, I think, very important in both cases. Yeah, I think we’re quite lucky that we never had a bad project experience. The first two were kind of two successes for us.
Radhika Moolgavkar: That’s amazing. You talked a lot about feedstock and I’m just curious, are the types of feedstock you work with in Ghana and India similar or what are some of the things Outside of the distributed network and to ensure it’s truly waste, are you thinking about when you look at the feedstock, analyze it?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah. So over time, you just understand which feedstocks work and which ones are already centralized or having value. But in general, of course, you have the bigger commodities in the food basket from the Global South, which is rice, so patty straw we have been working with, but of course also corn, so corn stalks and corn cobs. So if that’s around, then at least we know that we already have a project to continue with. And then along the way, we understood that also cotton stalks can be processable. That even sorghum stalks, millet stalks, cocoa pots.
So that’s specifically that in Ghana, not that much in India. But whenever you go, you want to try out which feedstocks work with our technology. And yeah, right now we have kind of, I think a list of 10 different waste streams that we are experienced with. We also need to train ourselves how to produce it. At least with that confidence, we can continue. And the great thing is that we have, I would say, we are competitors within this field. But along the way, we have those discussions with our competitors about these topics, which biomass can produce biochar.
And then afterwards, what type of criteria are they meeting, right? Because you have all those criteria that a biochar needs to meet to claim a permanence. So... There are quite some assessments you need to do before you start a project and specifically on biomass.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And then the final question on the technology piece is obviously biochar involves pyrolysis. So I’m just curious, do you have mobile pyrolysis machines? How does that work?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah, good question. Mobile paralysis units is something we’re looking into because in that scenario you have a somewhat more efficient system that you can move around. We’re still assessing that with different technology providers. In the meantime, we have been doing it mainly with soil pits or contiki kilns. And in that way, the education of the farmer and themselves is very important. So we have been going there and training them how to produce the biochar. And it’s a beautiful, simple solution because in the end, if you train someone properly, everybody can do it.
I just saw yesterday also this great way of regenerative agriculture, making those moons to create more green nature in deserts. It feels like the same type of solution. Everybody can do it as long as the education is efficient, but at the same time also on high quality. What happens? Whenever you produce the biochar, these are somewhat more technical details, but whenever you produce the biochar, the most important part is that your syngases, so the gases that come free from the biomass, are being burned and that you use that heat for further pyrolysis.
And in our case, we don’t use then the waste heat, which is being used in many cases with high-tech paralysis centralized. But in our case, it’s more effective than it’s efficient, I would say. That’s the biggest difference.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So then turning to the farmers, as you were mentioning, you have to educate them. There’s obviously a process of getting to know the farmers. So, so far, what’s been the reception from these farmers in India and Ghana and how are they embracing this technology?
Mart de Bruijn: Um, hm. For them, like initially, they are quite enthusiastic because we come there and it’s felt sometimes even surreal that with all the rituals, how they welcomed us, that we were kind of like God gifts, that we are providing them a new income because that’s the case. We pay them to produce the biochar and they can keep it for themselves. So this is what has been explained to them. And that’s why I think initially like enthusiasm is very high, especially on the payment side, right? They don’t understand yet what biochar is in most cases.
So for them having an extra income, especially in off season, right? Because they have harvesting, have harvested it. Then afterwards they need to Do something with their waste streams and normally they would have just left there and or burn it and right now they can make extra value out of that. That waste those waste streams. So I think for them it was like a no-brainer to at least start. And over time you hear better or even greater stories that they apply to their soils and they are so happy that last season the harvest was better or more adaptive to climate change.
So yeah, till so far it has been great. But I have to say, for example, difference between Ghana and India. In India, we didn’t speak the local language, of course. And in Ghana, most of the farmers involved speak a bit English. And they were sometimes skeptical in the sense of like, this is too good to be true for us. So I would say there is some skepticism, but yeah, in a good way, I think.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So when you’re educating them, are you educating them both about the technique of creating biochar and the use of biochar as a soil amendment? Is that new to their farming practices?
Mart de Bruijn: Yes. At least biochar combined, charging your biochar with compost or any other types of nutrients like manure, that’s something totally new to them. But in many cases, they’re There has been already structures where they make either compost or they have manure. So dependent on every case, we think about how to apply the biotar to the soil and then we teach them how to do it. And of course, that’s new to them. But applying something to their soil is of course not new to them. And we try to keep that within their existing soil.
So whenever they need to plan for either new trees or they need to do new seedlings, then we apply it. So, yeah, that’s not per se new, but the biochar itself, yes, it is new to them.
Radhika Moolgavkar: All right. So let’s turn to the other side of the equation. You’ve obviously talked about working with buyers, Western buyers. The topic always is monetary reporting and verification of carbon removal credits. So... How, first of all, how does your carbon crediting system work and how do you ensure that the biochar is actually being produced correctly?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah. So regarding the common crediting system, it’s similar to every other biochart project. However, because it’s distributed, monitoring, I think is even more important, especially that you understand that the right feedstock was there. So it starts all there. By taking pictures of the feedstock that’s done by an external supervisor, so not the farmer itself. So there’s not a conflict of interest applying the data. And then the biochar has been produced with that supervisor. And then afterwards, the most important part to determine how much is produced is to measure it. And we know the bulk densities of most of all biochars that we work with.
And in that way, we can calculate how much has been produced because we cannot weigh the biochar because that might differ. Due to moisture. So we want to make sure that we do not make any mistakes and the volume stays the same. So we do know the volume. We do know the bulk density. We do a lot of testing regarding that biochar. What is the bulk density? What is the karma content? And we try to average that out over time, right? So not, I cannot say that every time we do lab tests that it will be the same, but over time we can hopefully see there’s not too much of Insignificancy, so that it’s too variable.
So that will give us an average that we can trust. And the last part is the application, which is also again done by Geo and Timestamped Photographs, again with the supervisor. And over time, we are now also engaged with Pan Village, which is... Providing an app based out of the Penn State University, and they are looking at all types of solutions, how to cross-check it with other types of technologies, either with remote sensing, IoT, algorithms, AI. So right now, this is the base scenario, and I can talk hours about how to improve it.
And this is how we... Then issue the credits on the registry with that data. And something very important to say, within our projects, it’s not only about the MRV Digitally, I think it’s very important to emphasize that distributed projects also need a great management system on ground. So a lot of stuff is also being cross-checked by our local people, which is of course not easy to understand from a buyer point of view because they want to see data points, etc. But it is an important aspect of our monitoring system.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, I mean, good for you for not letting perfection be the enemy of good. You know, I really love that you’re jumping in and trying it and figuring it out. I mean, I think that’s how we’re going to succeed as an industry. So... Obviously you’re established in India, so I’m wondering what your future plans in India are and have you seen local government and institutional support for this? And are you seeing more farmers interested as they see the success of their neighbors?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah, there’s definitely like a waiting list of farmers that want to join the program and that’s something Reasoning to expand in the end, right? If demand comes, we can expand our project. And in parallel, we’re also constantly improving the projects. And we’re assessing different type of technologies, whether it’s both the MRV where we just were talking about, but also on technology. And India is also a great engineering country. So there might be a good opportunity to start looking at distributed solutions that Reduce even more risk that you can think of within such a project, but also makes life easier for the farmer how to produce the biochar.
And I think the most important topic when it comes down to the production itself is to let it become more tech dependent and less human dependent. But our objective is still to keep it distributed so the farmer benefits from the biochar and potentially then also again from the carbon incentive. Regarding Governmental, Organizations or local organizations coming with new rules or subsidies. We have not yet heard about potential opportunities for that. But we are getting updates from the Common Removal Alliance in India, which has been a great way to get updates.
But it would be very interesting to get our credits at some point of time under the Article 6 agreement that even between countries, biochar is becoming a topic. But right now, Most credits are somewhat in the lower price bound and biochar is most of the time a minimum of $100. So that’s not something a lot of countries are looking at. So maybe in future, yes, looking forward to it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And as you look to your future expansion, are there countries you’re thinking about targeting and working in?
Mart de Bruijn: So right now we just recently got two more projects certified in Ghana. So focusing on further expanding on the short term, I don’t think so. As I just mentioned, a lot of stuff about improving the project with either MRV or production technologies, I think in the coming Few months because production is in our case seasonal due to rain season. So after this production season, I think we’ll focus a lot of our time to assess different technologies. And we’re even onboarding a new guy who has a background, a PhD in soil science.
So I think together with him, we are going to take a deep dive into what are the best solutions specifically on the production of biochar. Maybe due to enthusiasm of one of our people on the team, yes, we might develop a new project. He, for example, is half Colombian, so I can imagine that he wants to go to Colombia and see what type of opportunities are there.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And then final question for you is obviously it sounds like you guys are killing it, doing a great job, have waitlist, have buyers. But as you scale up, you know, what do you see as the biggest bottlenecks for distributed systems? I hear a lot about centralized systems and the lack of biomass. Doesn’t seem like that’ll probably be your bottleneck. But what do you guys think about? What are you worried about when you think about scaling?
Mart de Bruijn: Yeah, sure. Indeed, regarding the biomass, but also the enthusiasm of the farmers right now, that’s not per se a problem. Though over time, I think that the biomass justification is even an important topic for us. If you look at India, I think biomass competition is also increasing. In our remote, of the remote areas, I would say it’s not yet the case. But I can imagine that over time, we also need to think and reassess which feedstocks do we want to produce biochar with. And if so, with what type of technologies, right?
Do we need to become more efficient with the feedstock? Is the right timing? I think that’s going to be... For us, a challenge. And it’s a new type of methodology, I would say, in comparison with the centralized production. So tough time in education, but also showing them how we can innovate over time. And we are committing, even by investing sometimes in co-designs and doing tests. So yeah, I think we’re quite committed in improving on that side. And in general, we got so much feedback from buyers, which has been our advisory board almost to improve the projects.
And of course, we all feel this hurry of climate change. And in the same time, you need to be the best on project development. So it’s a constant thin line of Improving and quantity. So, um, yeah, it’s typical discussion quantity and quality. So yeah, this is for us, uh, I think an important topic, especially to meet on ground situation, either Ghana or India and the, um, the buyer’s, uh, thoughts and 95 of the percent, they have really good ideas and we think, okay, we should implement and choose just the right timing for it.
Um, And manage then also, and this is more kind of as a project developer, maybe subjective, but managing production and sales in this market can be quite challenging, maybe even stressful, because most of the times it’s just spot. And as we are growing the business quite old fashioned, we do not have the capacity to like, Think easily about our capital. So yeah, I think that’s quite challenging as a project developer. You have quite some different types of pressure that you need to deal with, but it’s all exciting to do so.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, Mark, thank you so much for being on the show and providing a different perspective on biochar and A different way of going about it. I learned a ton, as I always do when I talk to project developers and suppliers, so really appreciate your time.
Mart de Bruijn: Sure, sure. And one more extra thing to say, a great thanks also to our partners on ground. I think if they would tell the story, they would have told it even in a way more, maybe romantic way, but they see the impact on ground. And yeah, I’m always surprised about how they can explain it to partners of us.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Oh, that’s a great idea. Maybe someday we can get an actual farmer on the show. I would love that.
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