Stockholm: Steering the city toward a greener future

The project team gets ready to open the biochar plant in Stockholm, Sweden.

In 2014, the City of Stockholm won the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge for its innovative biochar project idea, and on March 29 the city’s dream will become reality with the opening of one of the world’s first biochar plants. The biochar initiative, which leverages both city and citizen enthusiasm for combating climate change, aims to reduce carbon emissions through carbon sequestration. Residents provide plant waste to the city, which then uses that waste to produce biochar, a charcoal-like product that can be placed in citizens’ gardens and sequester carbon in soil for thousands of years.

The biochar process

STEP 1: Citizens collect garden waste for transformation into biochar.

STEP 2: After the plant waste is processed at the plant, citizens can receive biochar for use in their gardens.

STEP 3: The biochar is placed in gardens.

In addition to sequestering carbon, biochar also improves soil health.