The Biochar Supply Crunch

Why Production Surges Aren't Keeping Up With the Demand for 100-Year Carbon Removal

The global biochar market has officially broken out of its niche agricultural cocoon and entered a high-velocity industrial scale-up. The newly released 2025 Global Biochar Market Report by the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) provides definitive data proving that biochar is now the leading, most commercially viable permanent Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technology on earth. But for investors, project developers, and corporate off-takers, the most critical takeaway isn't just the sheer growth in volume—it is the massive structural supply deficit.

Despite record-breaking production gains, the global output of high-quality, 100+-year permanent biochar is failing to keep pace with the insatiable corporate demand for durable carbon removal. The result is an incredibly bullish, highly favourable price outlook for producers who can deliver certified, high-stability carbon sinks.

The Production Illusion: Numbers Are Skyrocketing, Yet the Gap Widens

At first glance, the top-line figures from the IBI report look overwhelming. Global biochar production reached an estimated 520,810 metric tonnes in 2025, representing a near threefold increase from the 180,150 metric tonnes recorded just two years prior in 2023. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 70%. Furthermore, the industry is projecting an aggressive path toward 3.5 million metric tonnes by 2027 and up to 9.3 million metric tonnes by 2030.

But here lies the illusion: while a 70% CAGR sounds massive for a traditional commodity, the biochar market is operating within the context of global corporate net-zero commitments. Fortune 500 companies and tech giants looking to neutralise their Scope 3 emissions are hunting for millions of tonnes of durable carbon removal today. A total global output of half a million tonnes doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of existing corporate procurement mandates. The production surge looks huge on a chart, but on the balance sheet of global carbon mitigation, it remains a fraction of the total addressable market.

The Premium Deficit: The Race for 100-Year+ Permanence

The supply shortfall becomes even more acute when filtering for quality. Not all biochar is created equal. While low-grade biochar can be used for short-term agricultural applications, the institutional carbon market exclusively values high-stability biochar. This industrial-grade material, produced via strictly controlled slow pyrolysis at optimized temperatures, locks carbon into a highly stable crystalline structure that resists environmental degradation for a century or more.

Corporate buyers are not interested in temporary fixes; they require verified, long-term permanence to back up their climate claims. Market tracking data reveals just how tight this premium tier has become: a vast majority of available biochar carbon removal credits for the year are committed or sold out early, leaving late-coming corporate buyers facing empty shelves. Pyrolysis infrastructure is highly capital-intensive and takes years to permit, construct, and commission. Consequently, the physical capacity to manufacture high-stability, 100-year+ permanent biochar cannot scale fast enough to meet the immediate procurement timelines of corporate off-takers.

The Economic Reality: Implied Revenues and Prices are Soaring

When demand outstrips supply so aggressively, basic economics dictates that prices must rise, and the IBI market report confirms exactly that. Commercial producer revenues skyrocketed from $47 million in 2023 to a staggering $245 million in 2025. Even more telling is the value generated per unit of output: the implied revenue per metric tonne of biochar nearly doubled in that two-year window, surging from $261 to $543.

This massive leap in revenue per tonne proves that even as supply tripled, the pricing power shifted decisively into the hands of producers. This trend is being heavily supercharged by the monetisation of the voluntary carbon market (VCM). The percentage of biochar producers who report earning zero revenue from carbon finance plummeted from 58% in 2023 to just 35% in 2025. In other words, nearly two-thirds of global operations are now successfully stack-risking their business models by blending physical biochar sales with highly lucrative carbon removal credits. With credits stabilising at attractive premiums, the financial ecosystem underpinning permanent biochar has never been stronger.

The Forward Outlook: A Producer's Market

Looking ahead, the price outlook for premium biochar remains exceptional. As heavy industries like construction begin adopting biochar to decarbonise concrete and asphalt, and as regenerative agriculture incentives expand throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, the demand vectors are multiplying faster than new kilns can be built.

For project developers and capital allocators, the message from the 2025 market report is clear: the market is severely supply-constrained. If you can build high-efficiency pyrolysis capacity and guarantee certified 100-year+ carbon permanence, the market will not only absorb your volume—it will pay a premium for it.

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Bibliography & Verified Sources

• International Biochar Initiative (IBI). (2026). 2025 Global Biochar Market Report Executive Summary: Global Biochar Production Surges Nearly Threefold as Industry Enters New Era of Scale. Retrieved from https://biochar-international.org/news/global-biochar-production-surges-nearly-threefold-as-industry-enters-new-era-of-scale/
• IMARC Group. (2026). Biochar Market Size, Share, Growth & Analysis Report 2034. Retrieved from https://www.imarcgroup.com/biochar-market
• Fortune Business Insights. (2026). Biochar Market Size, Share, Trends | Growth Analysis, 2034. Retrieved from https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/biochar-market-100750