In every issue of this newsletter, we try to highlight what’s moving this industry forward and many times, it comes back to the same thing: partnerships.
Biochar doesn’t scale because one company gets it right. It scales because producers, landowners, foresters, technology providers, buyers, policymakers and so many more start working from the same set of facts and trust each other enough to build together. That’s the real story of this industry right now, it is less about any single breakthrough, more about the connective tissue forming between people across the value chain who don’t always talk to each other.
This issue includes a story out of Rapid City, South Dakota, where a city government, a local biochar producer, and a public works department found their way to each other over a landfill problem. It’s a real example of something we see constantly in this industry: progress starts when the right people end up in the same conversation.
ABI’s mission is to deliver education, independent, science-based information, technical assistance, and standards for biochar. None of that happens in isolation. Collaboration is what makes standards credible and markets durable: producers and buyers working from shared information, together.
So, I want to ask you directly: Do you know who your partners are in the biochar industry? Not just your customers or suppliers, but the people a step or two removed from you in the value chain who are solving a piece of the same problem. It could be the researcher validating a new application, the feedstock supplier you haven’t met yet, the composter across the state, or a newly announced statewide grant program.
These are the types of conversations that move biochar from promising to proven and they rarely happen by accident.
That’s one of the true values of this November’s North American Biochar Conference. Three days of putting the right people in the same room (producers next to buyers, researchers next to policymakers, longtime members next to first-time attendees). If you’re coming to New Orleans, come ready to make a few new connections and continue those conversations long after the conference is over.
See you in New Orleans!
Tina Metzer
Director of Projects & Partnerships
American Biochar Institute
