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<v ->Axel, you have been a senior partner at BCG,</v>

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and now you are building a startup from ground up.

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How has this journey been?

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<v ->Well, the journey started as a typical BCG project,</v>

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you know: having an idea, structuring it,

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finding the business model, making a deck of slides.

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And then you need to confront the reality of, you know,

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"I have an idea and I need to test it in the real world."

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Reality doesn't bend exactly into the slide.

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<v ->Why is biochar such a big potential solution</v>

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for green growth,

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and what does it need to actually scale up in a big way?

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<v ->The potential, in theory, is gigatons.</v>

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Need to find a way to accelerate adoption,

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needs to come bottom-up from the farmers,

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and be top-down from the people buying the commodities

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and saying, "Okay, we want commodities grown with biochar."

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But it will take a lot of time.

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I mean, it will take decades.

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<v ->What's the benefit to the society</v>

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from the work that you are doing?

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<v ->Well, we see biochar as bringing a set of co-benefits</v>

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to local populations, on top of carbon removal.

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We talked about yield, increased yield for agriculture.

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It helps basically avoid crops being burned

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and air pollution.

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We create local industrial jobs in rural areas.

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Biochar helps reduce the usage of fertilizers,

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hence the pollution of waters.

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And there's a number of things like that.

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<v ->Wonderful. It has so many other advantages beyond,</v>

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you know, what started as the carbon removal

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as the primary one.

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Axel, thank you so much.

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It's been a pleasure talking to you.

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<v ->Thank you, Sumit, for having me.</v>

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(gentle music)