Why “biochar” must die so the industry can live
If you’ve read my newsletter, you know that I believe biochar has baggage and promise in equal measure. What follows here is more an intellectual exercise than an argument. I want to try it out and see if it holds water.
Here goes: I think the word “biochar” is holding the field back. I want to encourage producers to abandon it. How, you wonder, is it holding the field back?
Connotation - For the general public, “char” conjures a specific and arresting mental image. Barren, scarred landscapes, the aftermath of destruction. In the age of rampant catastrophic forest fires, char isn’t a welcome image, and the visceral response to anything burning is only going to get stronger. This is the opposite of the image you’d want to bring up in the minds of your potential customers. Want to convince someone you’re contributing to a sustainable, fertile, beautiful world? Don’t bring “char” into it.
Want an analogy? Plastic has gone from being thought of as part of the clean, amazing future to being considered toxic and problematic. So, people selling plastic (say water bottles) do what you might think to avoid the word’s connotation: they literally do not use the word plastic to describe their product. Extending this analogy to biochar would mean selling a biochar-based product and *never mentioning biochar*. Note, also, that prunes have evolved into dried plums.
Specificity - In a field that struggles deeply with product-market fit, anything that can make the job of selling biochar easier should be prioritized. I am pretty sure that Melissa from GECA was the first to describe biochar to me as “more a product category than a product.” Brilliant. When selling a product, specificity matters. You don’t sell “soil,” you sell “potting soil.” You don’t sell a plastic jacket, you sell a “Arato™ 10 nylon windproof” jacket. But most biochar products are described as “biochar,” or sometimes “biochar with soil”.
Emphasis - The name emphasizes how you make biochar. You take anything “bio” and you “char” it. An excellent piece of communication if you want to tell people they should be making themselves. As I talked about in this piece, the result isn’t quite as imagined - the DIY community ends up as a small group of enthusiasts while kneecapping the growth of a meaningful retail industry. What do you do with biochar? That part remains less clear.
Coming up with a hotter name
So, while we’re keeping things hypothetical, let’s say I find myself looking down at a bag of biochar, and I have to classify the product I’m about to go sell. Ideally, I want my new name to accomplish a bunch of things:
Communicate the value prop to my specific customer
Bring up the carbon balance
Make the fossil fuel product I’m competing with look terrible
Give me an opening to describe why my product is going to be incredible
Does your name for biochar do that?
A couple examples:
Let’s say I’m selling a home-gardening amendment (this might be a bad example as it’s a market which biochar has generally positive connotations).
Brainstorm: Fixed carbon for soil, Biogenic SOC, Advanced soil carbon (Peat free!)
What about a water filter for aquaculture?
Brainstorm: Biogenic activated carbon, Fixed carbon filter, Advanced carbon filter
In any case, it’s worth a thought; think of what branding accomplished for natural gas. Oooh, what about “natural carbon”?
I would love to hear what you think. Are names inconsequential? Hogwash? Do we need “biochar”, or are we ready to move on? What do you call your product?
It is easy to test your idea. If you take the time to list the names of biochars and biochar amended products that are offered in different markets you will find a wide variety of names depending on the application. Names of formulated or amended products like Christer's communicate the function or need that their products fulfill. Wholesale biochars are sold by the truckload as biochar or biocarbon depending on the labelling requirements of the state and the end use. You will find a guide to labelling requirements for biochar amended soil amendments on the USBI website. Since you are in a dreaming condition, how much do you imagine that biochar sales would increase if you changed the name? 500,000 tons per year? Try selling biochar yourself and you will find that the product description or name is probably a minor aspect of developing large sustainable markets.
Peter, you're right that naming is powerful. You're also right that it's better for a name to describe what something DOES (i.e., how it solves a problem -- what it is used for) rather than only what it is made of or how it is made. What are some words that describe what biochar does, what it is used for, what problem it solves? A hammer is for hammering. We don't call it a wooden handle with flat metal chunk on the end.
In at least one respect, the problem biochar solves IS what it is and how it is made. The main reason we are talking about biochar is that biochar is a solid and durable substance made from atmospheric CO2. It is a form of carbon sequestration. It is helping to solve the problem of excess CO2 in the air. This benefit does not rely on what the biochar gets used for. Just MAKING the biochar converts non-durable biologically captured CO2 into durably sequestered CO2. If you just stuffed the biochar into a cave and sealed it up, the sequestration value would still exist.
So what are the applications for biochar beyond carbon sequestration? What problems does biochar solve and what does it DO other than sequestering carbon? Focus on those applications and new names might emerge.