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MaCher has identified biochar as a potential intervention within its cotton supply chain. The opportunity is broader than carbon removal alone. Applied well, biochar could support soil performance, nutrient efficiency and resilience while creating additional value for farmers.
The challenge is to determine whether these outcomes can be delivered through a programme that is also robust from an insetting, carbon integrity and corporate accounting perspective.
The Challenge
When BioFlux became involved, there was no established biochar programme and several questions still needed to be resolved before MaCher could invest with confidence.
Cotton residues already had existing uses, including composting, fuel and fencing. This is significant because the climate benefit of diverting residues into biochar depends partly on what would otherwise have happened to them. Where an existing use is displaced, the resulting leakage or substitution effects need to be understood rather than assuming the full carbon benefit is additional.
The programme also has to work as an insetting intervention. For MaCher to reflect reductions within its Scope 3 inventory, the intervention needs to be linked to the cotton it purchases through an appropriate chain of custody and supplier-specific data. Biochar removals are accounted for separately and cannot be netted against those emissions.
Alongside these accounting requirements, the programme needs to create a credible proposition for farmers. Potential benefits such as improved soil condition, nutrient retention, reduced input requirements and greater resilience are relevant, but they need to be assessed and monitored and not treated as automatic outcomes.
The project therefore has to satisfy three objectives at once: create a genuine climate benefit, deliver value within the farming system, and provide a defensible basis for MaCher to account for and communicate the intervention.
BioFlux's Role
BioFlux is supporting MaCher in designing the programme from both the project and corporate side.
The first step involves assessing potential biochar partners. The evaluation considers more than production capacity, including experience with cotton residues, operational performance, monitoring systems, farmer engagement, traceability, and the ability to work within a value-chain programme rather than a standalone crediting project.
BioFlux will then develop the accounting and integrity framework for the intervention.
This includes assessing how emission reductions and removals will be treated across farmers, Gallant, MaCher and any project developer, what level of traceability will be required, how benefits could be allocated, and how claim rights would need to be managed to avoid double counting.
The underlying carbon integrity will be assessed in parallel. Key issues included the residue baseline, leakage and displacement risk, project emissions, permanence, monitoring requirements and reversal risk.
Farmer participation forms part of the same design. Rights to data, carbon claims and revenues, together with farmer payments and responsibilities, need to be clearly allocated before verification and issuance. The programme is therefore being structured around transparent participation and benefit sharing, rather than treating farmer outcomes as an additional layer added after the carbon model has been defined.
What Changed
MaCher had initially considered a more conventional carbon-credit model in which it would finance biochar production and use the resulting credits as evidence of climate action.
The work showed that this approach would not fully address MaCher’s objective of reducing emissions within its own supply chain.
The programme was therefore reframed around a direct value-chain intervention.
This has significant implications in terms of the design logic. Instead of beginning with the number of credits that could be generated, the programme starts with the supply chain itself: where the residues originate, how they are currently used, which farmers participate, where biochar is applied, what changes occur at farm level, and how those outcomes can be traced back to MaCher’s cotton purchases.
It also separates two climate outcomes that are often conflated. A real reduction in field emissions can reduce the emissions intensity of the cotton MaCher buys. Carbon stored through biochar is a separate removal that requires its own quantification, monitoring and reporting pathway.
This gives MaCher a clearer basis for deciding what it is funding, what evidence will be required, and what claims can credibly be made as the programme develops.
Outcomes at a Glance
Insetting architecture
Defined the traceability, chain-of-custody and attribution requirements needed to connect the intervention to MaCher’s cotton purchases.
Carbon integrity
Identified the factors that determine the programme’s net climate impact, including residue baselines, leakage, project emissions, permanence, monitoring and double counting.
Farmer and agronomic outcomes
Integrated farmer participation, soil performance, nutrient efficiency and resilience into the programme design and monitoring approach.
Corporate accounting
Clarified how reductions and removals are treated differently and what evidence MaCher would need to support Scope 3 reporting and external claims.
Implementation pathway
Set out the partner, data, rights, monitoring and governance requirements required to move the programme into implementation.
Why This Matters
Gallant’s supply chain offers a relatively high level of traceability. Farmer locations, production volumes and agricultural practices can be identified at an individual level, creating a stronger basis for linking the intervention to specific sourcing relationships and primary data.
This improves both integrity and usefulness.
From a carbon perspective, it allows the programme to establish what would otherwise have happened to the residues, where the biochar was produced and applied, what emissions occurred along the way, and who has the right to report the resulting impact.
From a supply-chain perspective, it also makes it possible to understand whether the intervention is delivering meaningful outcomes for participating farmers and the farming system itself.
This distinction is significant. High-quality climate projects are increasingly assessed on the tonnes they claim to remove or reduce, as well as how benefits and risks are distributed, how the project is governed, and whether outcomes are measurable and durable. Carbon Direct makes that separation explicit in its quality criteria, while Qantas similarly evaluates carbon integrity and broader project quality as distinct but related dimensions.
The MaCher programme is being designed around the same principle: carbon integrity, farmer outcomes and value-chain accounting need to work together.
