CDR trader Altitude is ramping up its purchases of biochar carbon credits, positioning itself to tackle what it sees as a fundamental mismatch between supply and demand in the carbon dioxide removal market. The firm, led by chief investment officer Benjamin Schulz, was built specifically to address structural bottlenecks in the CDR pipeline, and biochar is becoming a bigger part of that strategy.
Why it matters
The CDR market has a well-known problem: buyers want credits, but the supply of verified, high-quality removal tons is thin and lumpy. Projects take years to develop, financing is hard to secure, and the credits that do exist often get locked up in long-term offtake agreements with a handful of large corporate buyers. Traders like Altitude sit in the middle, trying to smooth out that friction by buying credits and making them available to a broader set of purchasers. The fact that Altitude is leaning harder into biochar tells us something about where the near-term supply is actually materializing.
The details
Altitude’s thesis is straightforward: CDR supply doesn’t flow efficiently to CDR demand. There are structural bottlenecks, meaning the market’s plumbing doesn’t work well yet. Projects struggle to find buyers at the right time. Buyers struggle to find credits that meet their quality standards. Traders can bridge that gap by taking on inventory risk, buying credits from projects, and reselling them to corporates or compliance entities. Benjamin Schulz, Altitude’s chief investment officer, has pointed to biochar as a category where the firm sees real opportunity. Biochar, for those unfamiliar, is a charcoal-like material made by heating organic waste (wood chips, crop residues, manure) in a low-oxygen environment, a process called pyrolysis. The resulting carbon-rich solid can be buried in soil, locking away carbon for hundreds to thousands of years. It’s one of the more mature CDR pathways, with a growing number of projects producing credits in the voluntary carbon market (VCM). Altitude’s move to expand biochar purchases makes sense given the current landscape. Biochar projects are among the few CDR approaches that can deliver credits today at meaningful volumes. Direct air capture (DAC) facilities are still small and expensive. Enhanced rock weathering (spreading crushed minerals on farmland to accelerate natural CO2 absorption) is scaling but faces measurement challenges. Ocean-based approaches are even earlier stage. Biochar, by contrast, has a relatively clear production process, established methodologies for quantifying carbon storage, and a growing base of producers across Europe, North America, and parts of Asia.
Implications
Altitude’s strategy highlights a maturing CDR market where intermediaries are becoming more important. In the early days, CDR purchases were mostly direct deals between a project developer and a big buyer like Microsoft, Stripe, or Shopify. That model doesn’t scale well. It requires every buyer to do their own due diligence, negotiate bespoke contracts, and manage counterparty risk with small, often early-stage companies. Traders like Altitude can aggregate supply, standardize quality expectations, and offer credits to buyers who don’t have the resources or expertise to source directly from projects. This is how commodity markets typically evolve. First come the pioneers making direct deals. Then come the intermediaries who add liquidity and price discovery. Eventually you get standardized contracts and exchanges. For biochar producers, having a well-capitalized trader willing to buy credits is a meaningful signal. It can help projects secure financing, since they can point to a ready buyer rather than hoping to find one after production begins. It can also help set price benchmarks, which the biochar credit market still lacks in any transparent way. For buyers, Altitude’s growing biochar inventory means more options. Companies looking to meet net-zero commitments with high-quality CDR credits may find it easier to source biochar tons through a trader than to negotiate directly with dozens of small producers scattered across different geographies.
Caveats
A few things to keep in mind. First, the source material here is limited in specifics. We don’t have exact volumes Altitude is targeting, price ranges, or the names of biochar projects they’re buying from. The strategic direction is clear, but the scale remains to be seen. Second, biochar credit quality varies. Not all biochar is created equal. The permanence of carbon storage depends on pyrolysis temperature, feedstock type, and how the biochar is ultimately used. Credits from high-temperature pyrolysis with verified soil application are very different from credits tied to lower-quality production. Buyers should ask hard questions about methodology and verification, regardless of who they’re buying from. Third, the role of traders in carbon markets is not without controversy. Critics worry that intermediaries can add cost without adding value, or that speculative trading could distort prices. In a market as young and illiquid as CDR, though, the bigger risk right now is probably too little trading activity, not too much. Liquidity helps everyone. Finally, and this bears repeating: CDR credits, whether biochar or anything else, are meant for residual emissions that can’t be eliminated through decarbonization. They are not a substitute for cutting fossil fuel use. Any company buying biochar credits should be able to show it has already reduced its own emissions as far as practically possible. CDR fills the gap that remains. It doesn’t replace the hard work of getting emissions down in the first place.
Source: qcintel.com