European Biochar Standards Under Development

The EU is now providing nearly €3 million ($3.7 million) to a project titled "Reducing Mineral Fertilisers and Chemicals Use in Agriculture by Recycling Treated Organic Waste as Compost and Bio-Char Products," also known as the REFERTIL Consortium.  The goal of the project is to develop product standards for biochar (and compost) in anticipation of a future Commission-led market-wide harmonization effort.  The four-year REFERTIL project is being led by Terra Humana, a Hungarian cleantech firm.  As with other current EU-supported geoengineering-related research work (see Update on EU-Funded Research, 7/19), REFERTIL is funded under the FP7 R&D support framework.  The relationship between any eventual EU biochar standards and the global standards recently published by the International Biochar Initiative (IBI--see IBI Issues First Biochar Standards, 6/3) is unclear.