Verra has registered the first project using VM0044 Methodology for Biochar Utilization in Soil and Non-Soil Applications, v1.1 in the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program. This marks an important milestone for the development of biochar projects as a viable approach for large-scale carbon dioxide removal.
Project Reignite: Turning Farm Waste into Climate Action (Verra Project ID 4679), located in the state of Odisha, India, and developed by Together for Restoration (external), brings together rural farmers to stop the open burning of agricultural waste and instead produce biochar from this waste. The biochar is then used on the same farms as a soil amendment (i.e., a material added to soil to improve its properties).
Using VM0044, v1.1 enables the project to calculate the emission removals it achieves by transforming this waste into biochar, after which it will be issued carbon credits representing carbon removals. The finance the project generates from the sale of these carbon credits helps the project maintain and even scale its operations.
Verra is currently revising VM0044, v1.1 to increase its usability and scope. A public consultation on the draft revision is expected in the coming months.
Biochar is a carbon-rich solid material that is created from biomass that is subjected to high heat and limited-oxygen environments. A substantial amount of biochar’s organic carbon will persist in soil and non-soil applications for centuries to millennia. If deployed on a massive global scale, biochar offers a high potential to combat climate change as a near-term, large-scale carbon dioxide removal technology, delivering a mitigation potential of at least 1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year by 2050.