Are you able to describe how Grain allows producers, buyers, and gear suppliers to develop and deploy waste-to-value tasks?
Grain Ecosystem is a digital platform that allows producers, buyers, and gear suppliers to maneuver tasks from idea to operation with confidence. For producers, equivalent to sugar mills, lumber operations, dairies, manure and bedding managers, nutshell processors, and forestry well being applications, centered on wildfire discount, we map natural and cellulosic waste streams and dimension the correct expertise so these streams might be transformed into bankable belongings like biochar, renewable electrical energy, wooden vinegar, and carbon credit. For buyers, we defend undertaking economics by standardizing diligence, validating MRV, structuring offtake contracts, and layering in catalytic and non-dilutive funding from tax credit to USDA, DOE, and native incentives. This accelerates tasks towards the best capital stack of senior debt, tax fairness, and sponsor fairness. For gear suppliers, we qualify tasks, validate efficiency, and guarantee orders translate into long run operations.
On the finish of the day, Grain is the connective tissue and the digital infrastructure that helps builders defend their undertaking economics, construct a number of income strains, and speed up the deployment of waste to worth tasks at scale.
In your latest TradeTalks interview, you emphasised that “resilience is safety” with regards to mitigating environmental dangers. Are you able to elaborate on a number of the “long-term, extremely impactful applications” that you just assume island nations and varied states ought to implement?
After I say, “resilience is safety,” I imply guaranteeing that individuals, economies, and ecosystems can stand up to shocks. In lots of my talks, I emphasize transparency, the mobilization of capital, urgency, useful resource constraints, and sensible options, all woven collectively as an invisible thread that guides my perspective.
For me, that is private. Rising up in Rhode Island, resilience means defending our coastlines and ports with microgrids, biochar-enhanced infrastructure, and pure buffers like wetlands and dunes. In Manhattan, the place I now dwell and serve on the Board of the Manhattan Chamber, it’s about hardening a floodplain that doubles as a world monetary hub, as a result of if the grid or water fails, commerce grinds to a halt. And in The Bahamas, the place I just lately keynoted their Enterprise Discussion board, resilience is nationwide safety, defending lives and livelihoods from storms that develop stronger yearly. Right here, mangrove restoration, coral reef strengthening, and dune methods usually are not simply ecological tasks, however frontline defenses towards storm surge and sea-level rise.
The trail ahead is obvious: Distributed clear vitality, waste-to-value hubs that flip residues into soil and carbon belongings, nature-based coastal defenses like mangroves, reefs, and dunes, and clear MRV that builds investor confidence. As Dr. Michael Mann warns, this should go hand-in-hand with emissions cuts, in any other case resilience turns into a treadmill. Day out and in, our staff is laser-focused on making these options bankable and scalable, so resilience really turns into safety.
You additionally highlighted that biochar is a significant focus proper now. Are you able to broaden upon how corporations or governments can biochar to show a waste stream into an financial income stream?
Biochar is about turning a paid waste drawback into bankable belongings whereas additionally bettering water, soil, and the inputs of different essential options within the constructed atmosphere. Corporations and governments can begin with what they have already got — ag residues, forestry by-products, manure, bedding, inexperienced waste — and dimension the correct gear to these streams. The result’s a number of income strains: Sturdy carbon removing credit, soil and water merchandise that increase yields and resilience, low-carbon constructing supplies, usable warmth and energy, and averted disposal prices.
As Vaclav Smil reminds us, the way forward for meals is determined by closing loops and utilizing assets extra effectively. From my travels throughout the U.S. and overseas, I’m continuously reminded of how fragile our soils and water methods are. Biochar immediately addresses each, making agriculture and cities extra resilient whereas creating actual financial worth.
By way of my work at Grain Ecosystem and with the U.S. Biochar Coalition, I’m centered on shifting this answer from pilot tasks to nationwide deployment, standardizing MRV, aligning coverage, and guaranteeing producers, buyers, and expertise suppliers have the instruments to scale. Encouragingly, federal coverage is starting to catch up: The bipartisan Repair Our Forests Act features a part on biochar innovation and would fund demonstration tasks in all 21 Forest Service and BLM areas, creating jobs, lowering wildfire threat, and advancing analysis. The Wildfire Discount and Carbon
Elimination Act of 2025 would add a tax credit score for sturdy carbon storage utilizing forest residues, explicitly naming biochar as an eligible pathway. And a wave of extra payments, from the Biochar Analysis Community Act to soil carbon monitoring and agricultural innovation measures, are embedding biochar into the coverage framework that may speed up adoption.
We want local weather options which might be each scalable and auditable, and biochar is among the clearest paths ahead. At Grain, we make the economics actual by mapping feedstocks, validating MRV, lining up offtake, and structuring finance so tasks stand on a number of legs, not simply credit.
