recarbono

Glossary

The language of carbon removal

Every concept behind measured biochar carbon removal, defined in plain language, no jargon required to enter.

Carbon removal & markets

Carbon removal (CDR)
Taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere and storing it durably, as opposed to reducing or avoiding new emissions. Biochar is one of the few CDR methods delivering verified removals at scale today. See what is biochar.
Carbon credit
A tradable certificate representing one tonne of CO₂e removed (or avoided). Removal credits are issued on a registry, serialised, and permanently retired when claimed.
Offsetting
Compensating for your emissions by buying credits from removals that happen outside your value chain. The claim: a contribution against your residual footprint. Compare insetting.
Insetting
Embedding carbon removal inside your own value chain: for biochar, applying it in your supply chain's soils or materials so the benefit lands in your scope-3 accounting, with agronomic co-benefits on top.
Offtake agreement
A forward purchase contract for future removal volumes: spot, annual or multi-year. Offtakes fund projects before they operate and secure supply for buyers in a tightening market.
Additionality
The requirement that a removal would not have happened without the credit revenue. Non-additional credits claim carbon that would have been stored anyway.
Permanence (durability)
How long removed carbon stays out of the atmosphere. Biochar's fused aromatic carbon persists for centuries to millennia. Certified biochar removals sit in the “several centuries” class (see CORC200+), evidenced by 2,000-year-old terra preta soils.
Double counting
The same removed tonne being claimed twice, by two buyers, or a buyer and a country. Prevented by serialised registry issuance and transparent retirement.
BECCS
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage: burning or fermenting biomass for energy, capturing the CO₂ and storing it geologically. One of biochar's sibling methods on the durable end of the spectrum,compared on our carbon removal page.
DACCS (direct air capture)
Machines that strip CO₂ directly from ambient air for geological storage. The most permanent removal method, and the most energy- and capital-intensive: the benchmark biochar undercuts on cost and deployability today.
Enhanced rock weathering
Spreading finely ground silicate rock on land so it binds CO₂ as bicarbonate over decades. A promising open-system method whose measurement is still maturing, the opposite of biochar's batch-level measurability.
CORSIA
The international aviation sector's carbon scheme (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation), one of the compliance doors a credit can qualify for. Biochar removals are not CORSIA-eligible today; we say so plainly rather than imply otherwise.
Article 6 (Paris Agreement)
The Paris Agreement's rules for trading mitigation outcomes between countries, including the corresponding adjustments that stop two countries claiming the same tonne. Host-country authorisation under Article 6 is what makes a credit usable in most compliance contexts.
ICVCM
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, the body whose Core Carbon Principles set the quality floor voluntary credits are increasingly judged against.
Scope 3
Emissions in a company's value chain rather than from its own operations, usually the largest share of a corporate footprint, and the accounting home of insetting claims.
Net negativity
The requirement that a project removes more CO₂e than its whole lifecycle emits: collection, processing, transport and application all counted against the claim. One of the vetting criteria on our buyers page.
Tolling
A commercial structure where a client pays a processing fee for their residue to run through a pyrolysis unit. They keep the material and the carbon value; the operator runs the equipment.
Build-own-operate (BOO)
A model where we finance, build, own and run a pyrolysis unit at a client's site, selling the outcome rather than the equipment. One of the ways industry works with us; the other is buying the unit outright. See engineering.

Standards & registries

EU CRCF
The EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming certification framework, Europe's regulation for certifying permanent removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products. We build to the CRCF\u2019s requirements as its methodologies are adopted; certification follows once the Commission recognises the first schemes.
EBC (European Biochar Certificate)
The leading European standard for biochar quality and safety: carbon content, H/C ratio, heavy metals, PAHs. Our accredited partner laboratories test every batch against it.
CSI C-Sink
The Carbon Standards International registry for biochar carbon sinks, tracking biochar from production through application into a verified, geolocated carbon sink.
CORC (Puro.earth)
CO₂ Removal Certificate: the credit unit issued by Puro.earth, the largest registry for engineered carbon removal, including biochar methodologies.
CORC200+
The durability class Puro.earth's Biochar Methodology (Edition 2025) assigns to certified biochar removals: carbon assessed to remain stored for several centuries. Persistence is assessed over a 200-year horizon (the threshold the class is named for) and tied to the material's H/C ratio. It is the class we design every batch to meet.
WBC (World Biochar Certificate)
The global counterpart to the EBC, operated by Carbon Standards International for production facilities outside Europe, the certification path for our Mozambique and Angola units.
Isometric
A carbon-removal registry known for strict, science-led verification and public protocols, including one for biochar. Together with Puro.earth, one of the two registries we design our evidence chain to satisfy.
Registry
The public ledger where credits are issued, transferred and retired. Serialization on a registry is what makes a tonne traceable and impossible to double-count.
ISO 17025
The international standard for testing and calibration laboratory competence, the standard our accredited partner laboratories work to.
MRV
Measurement, Reporting and Verification: the discipline of proving a climate claim. Traditionally manual and document-heavy.
dMRV
Digital MRV: sensors, lab data and software replacing PDFs and site visits. CarbonVision, the dMRV platform Recarbono builds, governed independently of production, ingests laboratory results as data and assembles the audit trail automatically. See technology.
QU.A.L.ITY
The CRCF's four certification tests: QUantification, Additionality, Long-term storage and sustainabilITY. Every certified EU removal unit must pass all four; unpacked in our CRCF explainer.
CarbonTrack
The field layer of our chain of custody: the record that logs each pickup's GPS origin, route, weighbridge ticket and classification, so a supplier's material arrives documented to registry requirements. In development, live for the first collections. See suppliers.

Science & production

Biochar
A stable, porous carbon made by heating biomass without oxygen. Locks carbon away for centuries while improving soil. Full explainer: what is biochar.
Pyrolysis
Thermal decomposition of biomass at 450–700 °C in the absence of oxygen. Without oxygen the material can't burn: volatiles leave as energy-rich gas and stable carbon remains.
Terra preta
"Dark earth": Amazonian soils enriched with charred biomass by farmers over 2,000 years ago, still fertile and still holding their carbon. The strongest empirical evidence of biochar permanence.
H/C ratio
The molar ratio of hydrogen to organic carbon, the key stability indicator for biochar. Below 0.7 qualifies as biochar; the lower the ratio, the more aromatic and durable the carbon.
R₀ petrography
Random reflectance analysis borrowed from coal petrology, measuring biochar permanence directly from its carbon structure rather than inferring it. A core method of our accredited partner laboratories.
Feedstock
The input biomass. Ours is fire-risk forestry and agricultural residue, material that would otherwise decay or burn.
Carbon sink
Anything that absorbs more carbon than it releases. Applied biochar is an engineered, verifiable carbon sink with a geolocated record.
AI biomass mapping
Using satellite and field data to locate and quantify available feedstock before siting a project, part of our digital infrastructure, in development.
PAHs
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: combustion by-products regulated in biochar because several are toxic. Controlled pyrolysis keeps them below the strict EBC/WBC limits, and they are measured per batch in the laboratory.

Missing a term? Tell us at info@recarbono.com.