Environmental campaigners warn that a lawsuit over fraud against a company claiming to be the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of biochar presents a stark warning of the dangers of the scramble for funding for unproven climate change techno-fixes.


In the same week that the Obama administration announced a new task force for investigating financial fraud,, Mantria Industries were taken to court by the Securities and Exchange Commission which accuses the company of running a ‘Ponzi scheme’ involving fraudulent investment deals targeted at elderly people.(1) The company has been marketing biochar through a joint venture with Hawaii-based company Carbon Diversions Inc. Biochar is fine-powdered charcoal which advocates claim will combat climate change by sequestering carbon when added to the soil. Scientific studies, however are inconclusive and there are concerns that biochar could potentially make climate change worse.(2) Nonetheless, biochar advocates, whose main lobby group is the International Biochar Initiative (IBI), are calling for US subsidies and carbon offsets as well as international carbon credits. Since news about the lawsuit broke, the IBI appears to have been eager to distance itself from Mantria Industries. However the company had been given a promotional page on the IBI’s website3, and Mantria’s chair, who is among four individuals to appear in court, was invited to present on the topic of ‘Bringing Biochar to Markets’ at a recent IBI conference in Boulder.