Carbon X: Building Latin America’s Most Ambitious Biochar Carbon Removal Project with Empacar

When Empacar S.A., Bolivia's leading sustainable packaging company, decided to enter the global voluntary carbon market, they began with a question about what to do with wood residues from sawmills across the Guarayos region. That question gave rise to CarbonX, a dedicated business unit targeting approximately 72,000 tonnes of CO₂ removal annually, and the beginning of a full project development partnership with BioFlux.

Bolivia’s Forestry Challenge

In 2024, Bolivia lost 1.7M hectares of forest and witnessed a 200% increase in deforestation as compared to 2023.

This devastating phenomenon led to Bolivia being ranked 2nd globally in tropical primary forest loss, surpassing the DRC despite having only 40% of comparable forest area.

Much of this deforestation is driven by agricultural expansion and unsustainable waste management, which are the leading causes of forest loss.

The Waste Management Crisis

Sadly, the consequences of deforestation are not limited to environmental destruction but also involve devastating social health implications. Local hospital data shows severe increases in asthma and bronchitis owing to PM2.5 inhalation from burning.

Agricultural burning is also responsible for the release of lethal toxins like benzene and black carbon which plunge local air quality to hazardous levels.

CarbonX is designed to tackle deforestation as well as the devastating environmental and social health consequences that arise from this crisis.

In the Guarayos region of Santa Cruz, legally authorised sawmills generate massive volumes of wood residues with limited disposal options. The existing collector networks and logistics infrastructure of Empacar will be strategically leveraged to process massive waste streams for the development of robust circular carbon removal solutions.

CarbonX Facilities and Impact

The program is designed to permanently sequester 70,000 tCO₂e of carbon per annum. This will be achieved through 4 industrial production lines.

The industrial scale production of biochar through CarbonX will lead to transformative soil health improvements and tangible agricultural benefits to local communities.

These value drivers include a 25-38% yield increase in tropical and nutrient-depleted soils as well as a 15-45% improved water-holding capacity in sandy soils.

The neutralisation of soil acidity represents a major constraint in tropical soy zones that CarbonX will tackle alongside reducing aluminum toxicity and the boosting of bacterial abundance.

Enabling Regenerative Agriculture and Local Community Empowerment

CarbonX is built on Empacar’s longstanding progressive tradition of promoting circularity and sustainability.

Carlos Limpias, Empacar’s General Manager emphasises how they “continue to redesign business models and encourage industries to incorporate the Circular Economy as part of our activities.”

In alignment with this philosophy, CarbonX will utilise the 13,500 ha of agricultural land owned and managed within the group to drive regenerative agriculture.

Collaboration with suppliers of feedstock will help increase the regenerative resilience of forestry stock.

In total, the biochar program will distribute 28,800 tonnes per year and prioritise vulnerable forest landscapes and local communities.

Carbon Credit Generation and Certification

High-integrity removal credits with century-scale permanence are a core component of CarbonX and have been a primary focus since the program’s design stage.

With 200+ years of permanence and 70,000 tCO₂e/year capacity, CarbonX will have a significant and enduring carbon sequestration impact.

The core certification pathways and dMRV include Puro.earth for high-integrity biochar carbon removal standards and registries. Cula dMRV provides a digital platform for transparent, efficient, and verifiable tracking of carbon removals across land based climate projects.

BioFlux is managing the full Puro.Earth certification process for CarbonX, including lifecycle assessment and greenhouse gas emission statements. First credit issuance is expected in 2027.

Achieving certification under the Puro Standard requires demonstrating additionality, feedstock sustainability, and durable carbon storage. BioFlux built these requirements into the project's design from the concept stage rather than addressing them retroactively, ensuring CarbonX enters the carbon market with the data infrastructure and audit trail that institutional buyers require.

From Feasibility to Facility

Empacar S.A. brings 47 years of industrial and circular economy experience in Bolivia, and it is that operational foundation which makes CarbonX viable at the scale it is being designed for.

The project is built around a single sourcing principle that all feedstock comes exclusively from sawmills operating under ABT oversight, ensuring that biomass entering the facility is traceable, legally compliant, and generated as a byproduct of regulated forestry activity rather than a driver of new pressure on forest resources.

Confirming that the Guarayos region could sustain production at the project's target scale was the first order of business, with detailed analysis of feedstock availability and biomass flows establishing both the volume and the sustainability of the supply base.

Laboratory characterisation of biochar conversions from Empacar's specific feedstock then established the product's carbon sequestration potential and informed the selection of the most suitable pyrolysis technology, a process that required evaluating mass and energy balances and working alongside engineering partners to identify retrofits that would maximise system efficiency.

The resulting facility layout integrates all biomass flow infrastructure from feedstock reception and pre-treatment through to the pyrolysis reactor, with automation prioritised throughout to ensure CarbonX operates as a reliable continuous industrial system rather than a manually dependent one.

BioFlux has supported each of these stages as technical development partner, bringing the project from a feasibility question about wood residues in Guarayos to a fully engineered, certification-ready carbon removal facility.

Commercial Traction at Scale

In March 2026, Altitude, a leading carbon removal financier, committed to purchasing over 305,000 tonnes of CO₂ Removal Certificates from CarbonX facilities in Bolivia, with credits to be issued on Puro.Earth or equivalent methodologies. The agreement is one of the largest biochar carbon removal offtake deals in Latin America to date.

BioFlux will serve as a primary sales partner for Empacar's biochar carbon removal credits, leveraging our network of carbon removal credit buyers to support offtake at scale.

In parallel, BioFlux is advancing biochar as a physical agricultural product, developing partnerships with fertiliser companies and opening application pathways across agriculture and adjacent sectors.

A Platform for Latin America

CarbonX is designed for replication. With multiple production sites under development in Bolivia and plans to expand the model across Latin America, BioFlux will continue as development and certification partner for future sites, bringing the same end-to-end approach that turned a feasibility question in Guarayos into one of the region's most significant carbon removal projects.

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