Google has agreed to purchase 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal credits from Indian startup Varaha, its first such deal with a carbon project in India and the largest involving biomass-produced biochar (also called horticultural charcoal or “black gold” for soils).
The offtake agreement credits will be delivered to Google by 2030 from Varaha’s industrial biochar project in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the two firms said on Thursday.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. So far, the New Delhi-based startup is the only Indian company to be listed on carbon removal standard and registry Puro.Earth.
Biochar is produced in two ways: artisanal and industrial. The artisanal method is community-driven, where farmers burn crop residue in conical flasks without using machines. In contrast, industrial biochar is made using large reactors that process 50–60 tons of biomass daily.
Varaha’s project will generate industrial biochar from an invasive plant species, Prosopis Juliflora, using its pyrolysis facility in Gujarat. The invasive species impacts plant biodiversity and has overtaken grasslands used for livestock. Varaha will harvest the plant and make efforts to restore native grasslands in the region, the company’s co-founder and CEO, Madhur Jain, said in an interview. Once the biochar is produced, a third-party auditor will submit their report to Puro.Earth to generate credits.
Although biochar is seen as a long-term carbon removal solution, its permanence can vary between 1,000 and 2,500 years depending on production and environmental factors.
For context: Carbon credits are linked to how long carbon can be permanently removed from the atmosphere by compensating for emissions with sustainable activities. Greenhouse gases have an extremely long impact on the atmosphere, for up to hundreds or thousands of years, so any effective carbon credit program must promise a similarly long period of carbon removal. “Permanence,” here, indicates how long carbon remains stored in soil before it returns to the atmosphere.
Jain told TechCrunch that Varaha tried using different feedstocks and different parameters within its reactors to find the best combination to achieve permanence close to 1,600 years.
The startup has also built a digital monitoring, reporting and verification system, integrating remote sensing to monitor biomass availability. It even has a mobile app that captures geo-tagged, time-stamped images to geographically document activities, including biomass excavation and biochar’s field application.
With its first project, Varaha said it processed at least 40,000 tons of biomass and produced 10,000 tons of biochar last year.
“Even if we don’t grow our skills, we have already reached a level with which we are able to successfully process 40,000 tons of biomass per annum, which means that we can easily reach the target of 100,000 tons of biochar by 2030,” Jain said.
He added that each ton of biochar generates 2.5 carbon credits, and the startup aims to reach 1 million credits annually by 2030.
Carbon credits have gained importance as companies generate greenhouse gas emissions, and each credit equates to a one-ton reduction in carbon dioxide. By purchasing carbon credits, companies can support sustainable projects in an effort to offset their emissions.
Google has set a new record with this deal, as the last significant biochar carbon removal transaction was by Senken and Exomad Green, involving 81,600 tons of biochar carbon credits between 2025–2028. Still, Google’s deal with Varaha is minuscule compared with the tech giant’s carbon emissions.
In 2023, the search giant had total greenhouse gas emissions of around 14.3 million tons of CO₂ equivalent (gases), 13% more than a year earlier. The ongoing growth of AI development is predicted to worsen these emission numbers over time, though Google has said it aims to reach net-zero emissions across all its operations and value chains by 2030.
“Biochar is a promising approach to carbon removal because it has the ability to scale worldwide, using existing technology, with positive side effects for soil health,” said Randy Spock, Google’s carbon removal lead, in a statement.
Varaha currently runs 14 tech-driven carbon projects in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Kenya. The startup says it has also transitioned over 100,000 small farmers to sustainable practices, helping to remove over 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. It has raised $12.7 million in total, including $8.7 million in a Series A round last year, and it is backed by funds including RTP Global, Omnivore, Orios Venture Partners, IMC Pan Asia Alliance Group’s Octave Wellbeing Economy Fund, and Japan’s Norinchukin Bank.