A recent outlook published by S&P Global Commodity Insights highlights a clear shift in India’s biochar market that closely aligns with CRIA’s views and the discussions convened at CO₂ Forward 2025. The outlook also features perspectives from CRIA and its CEO, Asitava Sen, underscoring India’s growing role in global durable carbon removal markets.

Several themes explored in the outlook strongly echo priorities advanced by CRIA, including India’s cost competitiveness driven by abundant agricultural residues, logistics capacity, and technical talent; biochar’s role as a durable carbon removal pathway with strong soil and agricultural co-benefits; and the importance of forward markets and long-term offtake agreements to unlock finance during early project scale-up.

The outlook reflects CRIA’s long-standing position that clearer policy signals are essential to sustain market momentum. In particular, inclusion of biochar and other durable CDR pathways under Article 6 frameworks and domestic compliance mechanisms will be instrumental for India to realise its full potential as a global CDR player.

While domestic demand for CDR credits remains nascent, CRIA expects early adoption from hard-to-abate sectors, alongside the use of industrial embedding and insetting frameworks, to begin generating local demand. At CRIA, this moment is seen as a critical opportunity to align markets, policy, and implementation so that India’s CDR ecosystem scales responsibly and delivers real value on the ground.