Opinion: Africa’s biochar projects and the regulatory gap challenge

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As biochar gains popularity in Africa as a waste-to-value soil enhancer, climate and environmental expert Irene Kisiero warns that its growth is stifled by a lagging regulatory environment. She argues that clearer guidance is essential to resolve current complexities for stakeholders. 

• Ms Kisiero specialises in carbon project development, stakeholder engagement, Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) and GIS-based climate solutions across East Africa. Her work focuses on carbon markets and regulatory compliance under Verra and Gold Standard frameworks, with a growing emphasis on climate governance and low-carbon development in Africa. 

• “Biochar projects do not fit neatly into any single regulatory category. Depending on how a project is structured, it can simultaneously be a waste management operation, an energy producer, and an agricultural input manufacturer,” she says

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In September 2025, Namibia's Farm Gai Kaisa biochar project was awarded an A rating by Sylvera , one of the highest quality assessments available in the global carbon removal market. The project, Africa's largest industrial biochar operation, converts invasive encroacher bush into biochar certified under Puro.earth, and applies it back to degraded soils across the Namibian savannah. It is a milestone worth celebrating. But it also raises a harder question: what regulatory ground are these projects actually standing on?

I manage carbon projects across Kenya and East Africa. On some projects, I end up wearing three hats. Managing delivery, conducting the ESIA, and working through the regulatory analysis myself. That full-picture view is what makes biochar's regulatory grey zone very visible to me.

Biochar projects do not fit neatly into any single regulatory category. Depending on how a project is structured, it can simultaneously be a waste management operation, an energy producer, and an agricultural input manufacturer. In most African jurisdictions, that means it triggers multiple permitting tracks at once. An environmental impact assessment, an environmental operating license, sometimes an energy or waste handling permit, often governed by different agencies that have never had to coordinate on something like this before.

When I sit down to do the regulatory analysis for a biochar project, the first challenge is often just figuring out which agency is actually responsible. There is rarely a biochar-specific regulation. What exists instead is a patchwork: general environmental law, public health statutes, solid waste frameworks, and, if the project wants to sell carbon credits, an evolving carbon market regulatory layer on top of all of that.

The carbon market layer is moving fast

Kenya gazetted its Climate Change (Carbon Markets) Regulations in May 2024, one of only eight African countries to have enacted dedicated carbon market legislation to date. The regulations require that every carbon project undergo an environmental and social impact assessment, be certified to an international standard, and be validated and verified by an independent auditor. The Designated National Authority now sits at the centre of project authorization, and benefit-sharing with communities is mandatory- at least 40% of aggregate earnings for land-based projects.

That is a meaningful regulatory architecture. But for a biochar developer arriving in Kenya today, it sits alongside NEMA permitting requirements, sector-specific licenses, and the requirements of whatever international certification standard they are pursuing - Verra's VM0044, Puro.earth, or Isometric, each with its own MRV and feedstock documentation demands.

Across the continent, the picture is more fragmented

Beyond Kenya, most African countries are still designing their Article 6 systems, the Paris Agreement mechanism that governs how carbon credits can be transferred internationally. Ghana has an operational Carbon Registry. Nigeria launched its Carbon Markets Action Plan at COP28 in December 2023. Rwanda has made progress on sovereign authorization. But for the majority of countries where biochar projects are beginning to take root, the regulatory conversation is happening in real time, project by project, country by country.

What this means practically is that a project team has to operate on two tracks simultaneously: the domestic regulatory track, which may be incomplete or untested for this technology, and the international carbon market track, which has its own rigorous requirements that the domestic system may not yet formally recognize. That gap doesn't wait for lawyers. It falls to whoever's managing the project day-to-day.

The feedstock question is where it gets specific

One area where the regulatory gaps matter most is feedstock documentation. The leading international methodologies, particularly Verra's VM0044 require project developers to demonstrate that the biomass used is genuinely waste: material that would otherwise decompose or be openly burned, not biomass diverted from another use or harvested unsustainably. This is critical for the integrity of the carbon accounting.

But in most African jurisdictions, there is no established legal definition of waste biomass in the context of carbon projects. What qualifies as agricultural residue in one country's waste framework may be classified differently in another. When I am in the field conducting an ESIA, this definitional gap is a real compliance risk, one that requires careful documentation long before the first tonne of biochar is produced.

What needs to happen

The biochar market is growing fast. Biochar carbon removal accounted for close to 90% of all durable carbon dioxide removal credits delivered globally in 2025, with average credit prices reaching $164 per tonne. Africa, with its agricultural waste streams and degraded soils, has real supply potential. But realizing that potential requires regulatory environments that can keep pace with project development and not frameworks that project teams have to interpret for themselves in the middle of a field visit.

That means biochar-specific guidance within national environmental permitting systems. It means Designated National Authority offices that understand what VM0044 or Puro.earth actually require. And it means ESIAs scoped to the actual complexity of these projects, covering feedstock sourcing, MRV design, and community benefit structures, not just the standard environmental checklist.

The regulatory architecture is being built. The projects are already here. The question is whether the two will meet before the window closes.