The X Prize has been around for 30 years and has been used to catalyze innovations to solve many huge global challenges. The CDR X Prize was by far the grandaddy of all X Prizes with >$100M in total prize money. The competition spanned 4 years and attracted more than 1,300 entrants. In the final years the judges narrowed the field down to 20 finalists from 4 different CDR Categories: Air, Land, Oceans & Rocks. I played a small role as one of 72 expert reviewers a few years back that provided input to the judges on many of the biochar proposals so was thrilled to be invited to attend the announcements (thank you Net Zero!).
Earth Day 2025 was judgement day. The NY Stock Exchange in New York City hosted the event. More than 150 attendees listened to early funders and framers of this particular prize describe the journey of finding funds, shaping the prize and navigating through the last four years. Perhaps the thing about this prize that I appreciated the most was that one of the criteria for winning was that at least 1,000 tons of CO2e must have been sequestered by the winning company. Real world results, not future, possible sequestration. In retrospect this seems like quite a low bar, at least for the biochar industry which counts dozens of companies that are doing this every year. But at the time of the announcement, it did seem ambitious. [We didn’t learn how much each company had sequestered, but perhaps this information will soon be forthcoming!]
I was beyond thrilled to hear that Net Zero, a French-Brazilian biochar company, was named as the 1st runner up, winning $15M for their incredible efforts. Axel Renaud, his son Olivier and their Brazilian partners have done an amazing job in figuring out appropriate pyrolysis technology for different biomass, developing a solid and resilient business case and identifying the right local partners to make biochar production and use work. This is so much harder than is sounds!
To be fair, I think the Net Zero team may have an unfair advantage over any other biochar company on the planet as I suspect biochar is embedded somewhere in their DNA! I say this because Axel’s father, Olivier’s grandfather Guy Renaud was an early biochar pioneer in the Global South. He served for many years on the International Biochar Initiative, and I was very fortunate to overlap with him for several years on the Board. Guy was a passionate, perhaps even flamboyant biochar evangelist. My daughter’s favorite memory of meeting him in Paris was when he declared that if he couldn’t find someone to donate $1M to biochar support, he might just have to off himself! Well Guy, someone just gave a whole lot more than that and I’m sure you couldn’t be more proud that it went to your own son and grandsons’ biochar company. They are turning your dreams into reality. The hat tip Axel gave to you in his acceptance speech was so special. No other team, biochar or not, could claim to have 3 generations involved in the climate fight.
RIP Guy Reynaud and congratulations to Team Net Zero and all the other biochar teams that competed. Let the scaling begin with a vengeance.
