Biochar: Can It Help Reduce Carbon Emissions?

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Biochar: A Carbon-Negative Material with the Potential to Reduce CO₂ Emissions

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Researchers around the world are studying ways to reduce CO2 emissions. What they found? The properties of biochar, a ca. 2000 year-old invention could just be what we need, only used in new ways.

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What Is Biochar?

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Biochar is made from "biomass " and "charcoal" and consists in burning biomass such as dead trees and shrubs or agricultural waste. The result is a light, pure black material that smells like charcoal and has the consistency of a sponge.

Besides its use in agriculture, biochar finds a purpose as a substitute for lignite in the production of energy, as a waste water and air cleaning treatment or even as a construction material with a carbon sink feature in the building industry (according to Laufs Engineering Design, the replacing of a typical aluminium facade system with a 500 m² facade of biochar composite in a new AUDI AG sustainable dealership concept store in Germany prevented the re-emission of ca. 12t of CO2 from waste biomass).

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Biochar Can Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Plastics

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Additionally, a 2022 study by Kane et al. revealed that adding biochar to PLA, PHB, rHDPE, and HDPE plastics reduced their global warming potential and that biochar composites can be produced with net carbon neutral cradle-to-gate impacts.

Finally, a 2020 European Biochar Industry Consortium whitepaper on the matter highlighted that the carbonisation of waste and residual materials from landscape conservation and the food industry, sewage sludge, harvest residues and specifically cultivated biomass have the potential of saving 10 to 20 million tons of CO2emissions.

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Could Biochar Reduce Your Product Carbon Footprint?

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For manufacturers, material selection is one of the most effective ways to reduce a Product Carbon Footprint.

Biochar offers several advantages:

• Lower embodied carbon than many conventional materials
• Utilization of renewable and waste biomass
• Carbon storage throughout the product life cycle
• Support for circular economy strategies
• Potential improvements in material sustainability without compromising functionality

As regulations increasingly require product-level carbon transparency, materials like biochar may become an important component of future product development.

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The Future of Biochar in Carbon Footprint Calculations

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Biochar is rapidly evolving from an agricultural soil amendment into a versatile industrial material with significant climate benefits.

As research continues to validate its environmental performance, reliable CO₂ data will become increasingly important for manufacturers evaluating alternative materials and calculating Product Carbon Footprints.

At sustamize, we continue to monitor developments in biochar research and look forward to integrating verified biochar CO₂ values into our Materials Database, enabling manufacturers to make more informed, data-driven decisions when selecting low-carbon materials.