Biochar Project Criteria

Counting only the carbon removal potential of biochar, excluding the avoided emissions from biomass decomposition.

• If removals, reductions, emissions and leaks are merged into one factor, this overinflates the actual removal by including reductions. If a bad baseline scenario is chosen the reductions could outnumber the removals greatly. This does mislead the buyer of the removal-certificate.

The revenues from the sale of biochar-based credits are an important and relevant element for biochar industry to grow and achieve cost reductions via volume effect.

• Struggle to get biochar to scale is huge. Price of biochar has to decrease significantly in order to be utilized by farmers.
• Biochar industry growth will be slower and not relevant for the climate if the carbon sinks/offsets are left out.

The carbon removal attributes of biochar should be claimed only by the buyer of the carbon credits.

• Buyers of the biochar must be advised that the carbon credits have already been sold separately. Thus preventing other parties to claim carbon neutrality or negativity for purchasing biochar or extra heat as a result of biochar production.
• To reliably avoid double claiming, supply chains of the carbon must be documented, an independent audit system and closed contract chains are mandatory.

The origin of feedstock needs to be sustainable and traceable.

• The longer term availability of forestry residue feedstock should be assessed not to promote unsustainable increased cutting of forests.
• Examples of projects failing: using as feedstock big trees, grill-charcoal company diverting % of the feedstock for biochar.

Using biomass side-streams with no value-added alternative and no land use competition to avoid leakage e.g. agricultural and food processing residues, biomass residues such as thinning wood, shavings, and biomass from landscaping, wood damaged by pests, disease or fires, and sewage sludge, digestate.

• Many bioenergy companies adjust their power plants in order to produce biochar with 10-20% of the feedstock. Converting a traditional source of energy to turn it into biochar could, however, lead to indirect land use change because additional/alternative energy sources must be found, when biochar production does not create enough usable energy itself.

Sustainability of feedstock logistics, handling and pre-treatment.

• Feedstock should be sourced locally, avoiding long-distance transportation.

Pyrolysis gasses are fully burned and/or utilised and leakage of non-CO2 GHG emissions is prevented.

• If not captured, high methane emissions during pyrolysis can negate any carbon removal at least in the first decades after the pyrolysis.

Heat as a result of the biochar production process (incl. burning of pyrolysis gases) is not wasted, but utilised to the highest possible extent.

To ensure high permanence the molar 𝐻⁄𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑔 ratio must be less than 0.7 which guarantees the biochar stability.

• H/Corg ratio is a better indicator for the quality and stability of the end product than minimum temperature.
• H/Corg < 0.7 is scientifically acceted by the European Biochar Certificate, IPCC and Puro Standard.

Biochar is safe to use in the designed application on the basis of law and regulation and EBC recommendations

• E.g. a proof that the biochar does not contain heavy metals and organic contaminants when applied to soil by complying to IBI “Standardized Product Definition and Product Testing Guidelines for Biochar That is Used in Soil” and/or EBC “Guidelines for a sustainable production of biochar”, or national regulations for avoiding soil contaminations.

Chemical lab analysis (carbon content and stability) and a life-cycle assessment of the biochar production process, including energy consumption (e.g. electricity) and emissions, and distribution and use (cradle-to-grave).

• One tonne of biochar contains up to 3.67 tCO2 (depending on the carbon content) and from that amount needs to be reduced all emissions from the sourcing of feedstock, transportation, the biochar production process, distribution and application.
• If not all process emissions are accounted for (e.g. transport), there is a big variation in the carbon claimed to be removed.

At least 100y permanence for all applications, taking into account the lifespan of products, including cascading use.

• Soil application: Degradation rate backed by state-of-the-art scientific evidence.
• Non-soil application: Zero degradation rate for concrete.
• If used for concrete, carbon is permanently stored forever (50y during concrete's expected lifetime) and it remains stored even if concrete is shredded.
• Cold asphalt - recycled on the spot. - suitable for biochar. If used for asphalt, only cold asphalt as the lifetime of warm asphalt is 30y after which carbon is lost in the end of life treatment.

Biochar is used in applications in which substantial amounts of the biochar are not oxidized, this excludes burning.

Biochar should be applied in a “useful” manner e.g. to soil or farm sites to generate co-benefits in addition to storing carbon.

• Excluding soil application with a short life-cycle e.g. biochar is used for filtering heavy metals or other harmful substances for a short period of time and then combusted, where the soil ends up disposed after the season.
• Biochar can be used for soil remediation of heavy metal contaminated sites to reduce spread of contaminant.
• In phytoremediaton biochar can be used to improve the growth of plants and at the same time carbon is sequestered into soil.