Turning a Waste Problem into Bankable Assets

Can you describe how Grain enables producers, investors, and equipment suppliers to grow and deploy waste-to-value projects?

Grain Ecosystem is a digital platform that enables producers, investors, and equipment suppliers to move projects from concept to operation with confidence. For producers, such as sugar mills, lumber operations, dairies, manure and bedding managers, nutshell processors, and forestry health programs, focused on wildfire reduction, we map organic and cellulosic waste streams and size the right technology so those streams can be converted into bankable assets like biochar, renewable electricity, wood vinegar, and carbon credits. For investors, we defend project economics by standardizing diligence, validating MRV, structuring offtake contracts, and layering in catalytic and non-dilutive funding from tax credits to USDA, DOE, and local incentives. This accelerates projects toward the ideal capital stack of senior debt, tax equity, and sponsor equity. For equipment suppliers, we qualify projects, validate performance, and ensure orders translate into long term operations.

At the end of the day, Grain is the connective tissue and the digital infrastructure that helps developers defend their project economics, build multiple revenue lines, and accelerate the deployment of waste to value projects at scale.

In your recent TradeTalks interview, you emphasized that “resilience is security” when it comes to mitigating environmental risks. Can you elaborate on some of the “long-term, highly impactful programs” that you think island nations and various states should implement?  

When I say, “resilience is security,” I mean ensuring that people, economies, and ecosystems can withstand shocks. In many of my talks, I emphasize transparency, the mobilization of capital, urgency, resource constraints, and practical solutions, all woven together as an invisible thread that guides my perspective.

For me, this is personal. Growing up in Rhode Island, resilience means defending our coastlines and ports with microgrids, biochar-enhanced infrastructure, and natural buffers like wetlands and dunes. In Manhattan, where I now live and serve on the Board of the Manhattan Chamber, it’s about hardening a floodplain that doubles as a global financial hub, because if the grid or water fails, commerce grinds to a halt. And in The Bahamas, where I recently keynoted their Business Forum, resilience is national security, protecting lives and livelihoods from storms that grow stronger every year. Here, mangrove restoration, coral reef strengthening, and dune systems are not just ecological projects, but frontline defenses against storm surge and sea-level rise.

The path forward is clear: Distributed clean energy, waste-to-value hubs that turn residues into soil and carbon assets, nature-based coastal defenses like mangroves, reefs, and dunes, and transparent MRV that builds investor confidence. As Dr. Michael Mann warns, this must go hand-in-hand with emissions cuts, otherwise resilience becomes a treadmill. Day in and out, our team is laser-focused on making these solutions bankable and scalable, so resilience truly becomes security.

You also highlighted that biochar is a major focus right now. Can you expand upon how companies or governments can biochar to turn a waste stream into an economic revenue stream?   

Biochar is about turning a paid waste problem into bankable assets while also improving water, soil, and the inputs of other critical solutions in the built environment. Companies and governments can start with what they already have — ag residues, forestry by-products, manure, bedding, green waste — and size the right equipment to those streams. The result is multiple revenue lines: Durable carbon removal credits, soil and water products that boost yields and resilience, low-carbon building materials, usable heat and power, and avoided disposal costs.

As Vaclav Smil reminds us, the future of food depends on closing loops and using resources more efficiently. From my travels across the U.S. and abroad, I’m constantly reminded of how fragile our soils and water systems are. Biochar directly addresses both, making agriculture and cities more resilient while creating real economic value.

Through my work at Grain Ecosystem and with the U.S. Biochar Coalition, I’m focused on moving this solution from pilot projects to nationwide deployment, standardizing MRV, aligning policy, and ensuring producers, investors, and technology providers have the tools to scale. Encouragingly, federal policy is beginning to catch up: The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act includes a section on biochar innovation and would fund demonstration projects in all 21 Forest Service and BLM regions, creating jobs, reducing wildfire risk, and advancing research. The Wildfire Reduction and Carbon

Removal Act of 2025 would add a tax credit for durable carbon storage using forest residues, explicitly naming biochar as an eligible pathway. And a wave of additional bills, from the Biochar Research Network Act to soil carbon monitoring and agricultural innovation measures, are embedding biochar into the policy framework that will accelerate adoption.

We need climate solutions that are both scalable and auditable, and biochar is one of the clearest paths forward. At Grain, we make the economics real by mapping feedstocks, validating MRV, lining up offtake, and structuring finance so projects stand on multiple legs, not just credits.