In sustainability discourse, biochar is often interpreted as a symbol of green technologies – an alternative to fossil carbon and a promise of a cleaner future. However, this perspective risks reducing the material to its representational meaning, neglecting its active presence in the material world. New materialism offers an alternative understanding: it encourages us to think not so much about what matter means, but about what it does. This perspective enables us to view biochar not as a passive resource but as a participatory element involved in shaping energetic, environmental, and even political processes.
Jane Bennett argues that matter is not inert but vibrant, possessing the capacity to affect, structure, and co-constitute processes. Biochar, formed through the pyrolysis of wood, becomes an energetic node that influences technological design not only on a functional level but also conceptually. Its porosity is not merely a physical trait – it influences the flow of electrons, the logic of storage, and structural form. In this view, biochar can be understood as a substance that “thinks” through its physico-chemical behavior: through resistance, absorption, and permeability.
Stacy Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality dismantles strict boundaries between body and environment. Biochar, too, can be interpreted as part of a relational web interwoven with landscape, forest, photosynthesis, soil, climate, and biomass residues. This material cannot be unambiguously classified as “natural” or “artificial” – it exists as a hybrid, linking living matter with technological function. In this sense, biochar is not simply a “transformed tree,” but a material response to specific ecological and engineering conditions.
The structure of biochar reflects multiple temporal layers-annual growth rings, porosity, pressure, temperature. When biochar no longer represents a tree but has been transformed, it takes on a new function: it stores energy, awaits release, and regulates dynamics. At this stage, the material becomes a kind of “temporal knot”- a material point where biological past and technological future intersect. This is a way for matter not only to exist, but to actively participate.
New materialism also opens a lens onto the political sphere – not reducible merely to human relations but inclusive of materials that co-create this space. Biochar may prompt reflection on local production, circular economy, technological accessibility, and resource autonomy. At the same time, there is a risk of this material being merely instrumentalized if its role is not understood within broader environmental and social processes. From this arises the ethical dimension of materialism – a call to care for what appears “inanimate” but affects and structures our shared world.
Biochar is not merely a symbol of transformation – it is a substance in which transformation is embodied. It simultaneously acts as a structure, a storage medium, and a transitional form. In this light, biochar can be understood as a co-participant in the processes of reshaping the world. By acknowledging its agency and presence, we broaden our understanding of how society is constituted – not only among humans but also in relation to the matter that acts within it.
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