The biocharBiochar is a carbon-rich material created from biomass decomposition in low-oxygen conditions. It has important applications in environmental remediation, soil improvement, agriculture, carbon sequestration, energy storage, and sustainable materials, promoting efficiency and reducing waste in various contexts while addressing climate change challenges. More industry currently sits at a fascinating, if frustrating, inflection point. On one hand, the theoretical potential for biochar to sequester carbon and rehabilitate soil is widely accepted. On the other hand, the market reality is characterized by high friction: fragmented supply chains, prohibitively expensive verification processes for small producers, and a physical product price point that remains out of reach for mainstream agriculture.

Co-founded by civil engineer Wihan Bekker, the company has pivoted from general consulting to a laser focus on solving the “missing middle” of biochar production. Central to this shift is CHARR (Carbon Harmonisation and Accounting for Reductions and Removals), a purpose-built digital MRV platform. CHARR provides the data backbone required to verify distributed, field-based biochar production at scale, enforcing a digital chain of custody that enables high-integrity carbon accounting in environments where centralised metering is not feasible Their approach highlights two critical themes that are likely to define the next phase of industry growth: the rigorous standardization of distributed production data and the strategic use of carbon finance to subsidize the physical product for agricultural adoption.

The Data Integrity Challenge in Distributed Production

One of the most persistent challenges in the biochar sector is verifying distributed production. Unlike a centralized industrial pyrolysisPyrolysis is a thermochemical process that converts waste biomass into bio-char, bio-oil, and pyro-gas. It offers significant advantages in waste valorization, turning low-value materials into economically valuable resources. Its versatility allows for tailored products based on operational conditions, presenting itself as a cost-effective and efficient More plant, which can efficiently meter inputs and outputs, much of the world’s potential biochar feedstockFeedstock refers to the raw organic material used to produce biochar. This can include a wide range of materials, such as wood chips, agricultural residues, and animal manure. More is distributed—specifically, in areas affected by invasive species and in forestry residues. In South Africa alone, where Ikhala operates, approximately 10 million hectares are impacted by invasive trees. Farmers often burn this biomassBiomass is a complex biological organic or non-organic solid product derived from living or recently living organism and available naturally. Various types of wastes such as animal manure, waste paper, sludge and many industrial wastes are also treated as biomass because like natural biomass these More to clear land, releasing carbon and damaging topsoil, simply because the logistics and cost of centralized processing are prohibitive.

To turn this waste liability into a carbon asset, production must happen on-site. However, mobile production has historically suffered from a lack of data rigor. How does a verifier in Geneva trust that a contractor in the Western Cape of South Africa actually produced the biochar they claim?

The CHARR platform addresses this by enforcing a digital chain of custody that mimics the rigor of industrial plants. The system functions as a companion tool for the Ring of Fire kiln, a flame-cap kiln designed by Kelpie Wilson. By standardizing the hardware—ensuring every kiln has identical dimensions—the software can accurately calculate volumes and mass based on simple field measurements.

What sets this approach apart is the granularity of the data collection. The application requires photo evidence for every single data point—from feedstock moisture content to the depth of the char in the kiln. It uses a “bulk density” methodology that involves weighing hot char in standardized buckets before quenching, which aligns with upcoming updates to the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) standards. This moves verification from a trust-based system to an evidence-based system. In the carbon market, currently besieged by quality concerns, this level of auditability is not just a feature; it is a prerequisite for survival.

The Economics of Aggregation: Solving the Verification Cost Crisis

For investors and project developers, the unit economics of carbon verification are a primary barrier to entry. As Bekker notes, a small producer generating $10,000 worth of carbon credits might face verification costs of $8,000 to $20,000. This effectively wipes out the margin, leaving no funds to pay the teams actually doing the work. This economic reality has stifled the growth of small- to medium-sized projects, leaving the market bifurcated between massive industrial facilities and hobbyists who cannot access carbon finance.

The industry solution emerging here is “aggregated distributed production.” Instead of trying to verify one hundred 10-ton projects individually, the strategy is to aggregate them into a single, high-volume project instance. Ikhala’s pivot from supporting tiny artisanal producers to developing a system that enables “10 x 1,000-ton projects” reflects a maturing understanding of the market.

The role of software in this model is to perform “pre-validation”. By ensuring that data is compliant and consistent before it ever reaches a third-party verifier, the cost and time associated with verification are drastically reduced. This is a critical insight for software vendors in this space: the value proposition is not just “digitizing paper,” but actively de-risking the audit process. For investors, this aggregation model suggests that the most scalable opportunities may not be in building new giant factories, but in funding platforms that can organize and monetize existing distributed labor forces.

Hardware-Software Symbiosis

For equipment manufacturers, the integration of the Ring of Fire kiln with the CHARR app signals a shift toward hardware-software symbiosis. The kiln is no longer just a steel vessel; it is a standardized unit of measurement. Bekker’s team licenses the manufacturing of these kilns to ensure they match precise CAD specifications. This standardization allows the software to contain pre-loaded “assets” (e.g., 8-panel or 10-panel kilns) with known volumes.

When a field operator selects a specific kiln configuration in the app, the system already knows the geometry. This eliminates the need for complex, error-prone manual calculations in the field. The implication for the broader manufacturing sector is that equipment sales will likely depend on digital integration. Manufacturers who can provide verifiable data streams—or whose equipment is pre-profiled in leading MRV (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification) platforms—will have a distinct competitive advantage over those selling “dumb” iron.

Furthermore, the app’s design acknowledges the realities of field work. It functions fully offline, syncing only when a signal is available, and includes “guard rails” that prevent users from submitting incomplete batches. This user-centric design reduces the training burden on temporary labor and ensures that the data flowing up to the project developer is clean.

Disrupting the Market: The Strategy for $200/Tonne Biochar

Perhaps the most significant strategic insight from this analysis is the proposed pricing model for the physical biochar. Currently, biochar in the South African market (and many international markets) retails between $400 and $3,000 per dry tonne. At this price point, it is a boutique soil amendmentA soil amendment is any material added to the soil to enhance its physical or chemical properties, improving its suitability for plant growth. Biochar is considered a soil amendment as it can improve soil structure, water retention, nutrient availability, and microbial activity.   More for vineyards or cannabis growers, not a staple for broadacre agriculture.

Bekker outlines a strategy to disrupt this dynamic by decoupling production costs from the sale price. The plan involves using carbon revenue—secured through the rigorous data collection described above—to cover the operational costs of the forestry management and char production. The upfront costs of registering the carbon project itself have already been de-risked through a recently awarded P4G (Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030) grant—a multilateral initiative hosted by the World Resources Institute that provides catalytic funding to accelerate scalable climate solutions in emerging markets. This allows the physical biochar to be sold to the agricultural sector at essentially the cost of handling and logistics: approximately $200–340 per tonne, for raw and crushed biochar, respectively.

This approach addresses the “chicken and egg” problem of biochar adoption. Farmers operate on thin margins and cannot afford $1,000/tonne inputs, regardless of the long-term soil benefits. By subsidizing the production of physical products with carbon finance, the industry can flood the market with affordable biochar. This achieves two goals: it sequesters carbon immediately, and it allows farmers to adopt the material at scale, generating the longitudinal data needed to prove its agricultural value.

For biochar buyers, particularly in the agricultural co-op space, this model suggests that long-term offtake agreements should be negotiated in tandem with carbon project developers who have a vested interest in moving volume rather than maximizing per-ton margins.

The Road Ahead: From “Tire Kickers” to Industrial Scale

The trajectory of Ikhala Impact mirrors the industry’s necessary maturation. The company has explicitly moved away from “tire kickers”—enthusiastic but undercapitalized participants who consume time without generating revenue—toward forestry projects and large-scale agricultural pilots.

Their roadmap includes a major project in the South African forestry sector, aiming to manage post-harvest slash and generate 100,000 to 150,000 credits per year by 2030. This shift toward forestry health and fuel load reduction aligns with global trends, particularly in the Western United States, where wildfire mitigation is a primary political and environmental driver.

The integration of corporate carbon footprinting (ISO 14064) alongside biochar production also suggests a convergence of services. Clients, such as major wine distributors, are looking for holistic carbon management—reducing their own footprint while sequestering with biochar. Platforms that can offer both “clean biochar” project development and custom MRV for broader corporate accounting will likely become the operating systems of the new carbon economy.

The CHARR platform and its methodology offer a blueprint for how the biochar industry can overcome its current bottlenecks. By treating data with the same rigor as the physical product, and by leveraging carbon finance to democratize access to the material, the sector can move from niche experimentation to global impact.