In 2002 the BBC documentary Horizon: The Secret of El Dorado was released educating the people on the concept of biochar through research into Terra Preta, the fertile man-made black soil of the Amazon.
That same year, Circle Carbon founder Christer Söderberg returned to Sweden from Brazil after feeling compelled to pursue work with greater environmental and social impact. However, it would take nearly another decade before Christer was eventually introduced to biochar and its potential.
In the years before discovering biochar, Christer focused on reforestation through the Open World Foundation, which aimed to restore forest ecosystems and build community around environmental action. Projects included planting native trees on an organic coffee plantation in Brazil as part of the “Replanting a Rainforest” initiative. While tree planting showed promise, maintaining the young forests proved both difficult and expensive. In 2011, Söderberg met biochar advocate Stephen Hinton, who suggested that producing biochar could have an even greater environmental impact than planting trees alone.
This encounter sparked years of experimentation, collaboration, and learning alongside experts in the biochar and permaculture communities. Through workshops, field trials, and educational events, Christer deepened his understanding of biochar’s agricultural and climate benefits. After winning recognition for a biochar project in 2017, he attended COP23 in Bonn, reconnected with environmental networks, and began raising capital to formally establish Circle Carbon.
In 2018, Circle Carbon became a social enterprise focused on carbon-negative soil regeneration using biochar technology. Its demonstration and research center, Circle Carbon Labs, operated for five years, converting over 200 tons of biomass waste annually into premium biochar products. Initially challenged by the market’s unfamiliarity with biochar (and the outbreak of COVID), the team began growing fruits and vegetables to showcase its benefits. The results included healthier soils, more resilient crops, earlier fruit production, and higher-quality harvests, eventually attracting chefs and restaurants willing to pay premium prices for the produce.
Beyond producing biochar, Circle Carbon positioned itself as a model for regenerative living and a “Virtuous Circular Economy.” The organization emphasized education through tours, workshops, and public engagement, helping people understand the relationship between healthy soils, carbon storage, and sustainable agriculture. Through years of experimentation and storytelling, Circle Carbon demonstrated that businesses can move beyond extraction-based models and instead restore ecosystems while creating long-term environmental and economic value.
Recognizing the limits of an island economy dependent almost exclusively on tourism and with limited available biomass residue, Christer looked again towards Brazil. With virtually unlimited biomass waste and one of the world’s largest agricultural economies, the Global South presented itself with the opportunity to create a project with significant social and environmental impact. In 2022 the search was on to develop an industrial scale biochar production and application in Brazil. One year later in 2023 the Mallorca project was closed and focus redirected to the growing Brazilian project, coming full circle with new/old partner Yudi Rogério Shimmori, now living in São Paulo, who had participated in the Open World Foundation project “Replanting a Rainforest” almost 20 years earlier.