Local council turns to ancient technology to reduce carbon footprint

Lancashire County Council has become one of the first local authorities to trial the use of biochar to capture carbon and improve soil health, as a way to help mitigate climate change. 

Biochar  is a charcoal-like substance used to store carbon in the soil for thousands of years and is recognised as a natural-based solution by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is an ancient technology, first used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon basin to make the soil fertile, and is created through a controlled process that converts organic biomass waste such as plant trimmings into stable soil carbon.

Lancashire County Council has partnered with Positive BioCarbon on this project, which aims to reduce the county’s carbon footprint as part of continued efforts to reach the government’s net zero target by 2050.

The pilot project is being conducted on a total of six hectares of farmland at two different sites: Midgeland Farm near Blackpool and Chisnall Hall near Chorley.

James MacPhail, a Biochar consultant for Positive BioCarbon, said: "Industry and academia have been applying biochar to a huge variety of soils, crops, agroforestry, and substrates applications for years. As such, Biochar is generally viewed as a soil improvement tool that can sequester carbon whilst improving soil health by retaining nutrients and water.”

This new initiative comes as local authorities have ambitious carbon reduction targets to meet. According to figures by the Office for National Statistics, 95% of UK local authorities have declared a climate emergency, and two-thirds of councils actively working to be carbon neutral by 2030,

“Biochar could be a powerful tool in climate action to achieve these goals,” MacPhail said. 

Lancashire’s green agenda 

The biochar project is part of a wider strategy developed by Lancashire to make the county greener. 

County Councillor Shaun Turner, cabinet member for environment and climate change, said: "Protecting Lancashire's environment is one of our key priorities. We've already made great steps forward with schemes such as piloting the innovative use of biochar to improve carbon capture in land where it is not practical to increase tree cover and through the work our highways team does to recycle road surfacing materials.

"We want to build on this and our Environment and Climate Strategy will spearhead further major reductions in waste and emissions and provide for the recovery of nature in our outstanding county.”