Lottie Hawkins, 26, is the innovator behind award-winning start-up Earthly Biochar. Launched in 2018, the ambitious brand was co-founded by Lottie after her realisation that biochar, a stable form of carbon made from wood, could be one of the answers to the planet’s climate change emergency. Developing from her own passion for conservation and gardening, Lottie is on a mission to raise the profile of biochar as an effective soil improver and method of carbon capture. 

After graduating in 2016 from Newcastle University with a degree in Molecular Biology, Lottie, originally from Salisbury, was on the lookout for a job opportunity where she could make a difference, as she explains: ‘My degree left me frustrated at the state of the environment and the slow pace of change in response to climate change. As I finished university, I knew I wanted to make a difference, but I couldn’t find any work in impact-driven companies. I felt like I was lacking purpose. 

‘I met with some mentors who suggested I apply for a Google scholarship through Google Squared that would teach me about digital marketing, innovation in technologies and leadership skills. I was fortunate enough to win a place, it was nine months long and acted as a great springboard for me to setup my own agency supporting not-for-profits and impact brands. I helped them get noticed and scale their work.’ 

Through her agency, Lottie became the UK Launch Manager for, Koh, an Australian start-up developing eco-cleaning products. The innovative brand developed the first allergy-friendly cleaning product in the UK to pass the highest standard of testing by Allergy UK. ‘I loved working with Koh; it taught me loads and I learned how to manage the setup of a manufacturing facility, the supply chain, and the UK office.’ 

It was while working for Koh that Lottie first heard about biochar and the idea of Earthly Biochar took shape: ‘My friend Connor, who was completing a product design degree at Bournemouth University, took me along to a permaculture meeting at his university and we met a biochar enthusiast called Greg. This is where Earthly really began. We went away buzzing with excitement around the potential of biochar to help mitigate two massive issues: soil health and climate change.  

‘Greg asked Connor if he could design a kiln to make biochar at home and that’s how the Earthly Biochar Kiln was born. It became the focus of Connor’s final year dissertation project and he graduated with a first-class honours degree and a working prototype. Meanwhile, I was learning about biochar over dinner every night, reading into it, finding published literature, and watching videos on YouTube showing how biochar works. I was shocked I hadn’t heard about this fantastic soil improver and incredible solution to climate change before. And I wasn’t alone. Biochar had a cult following in 2018 but very little awareness among the general public. I was convinced there had to be a reason that biochar hadn’t taken off in the UK. It was growing well in other parts of the world, but the UK was like a dead zone for biochar. 

‘I had always been fascinated by geography and the environment and became aware of environmental destruction in my teenage years through David Attenborough documentaries and the news. I think this led to my passion for protecting the environment – conservation of landscapes and animals. However, I never thought there would be such a simple potential solution with such a big impact, or that I would become so involved in spreading the word about it!’ 

The prototype biochar kiln quickly started to generate interest from people wanting to create their own biochar at home, so in 2018, the entrepreneurial pair launched Earthy Biochar as a business. Quickly, the start-up began to flourish and turned from an after-work project to a part-time job: ‘I started working part-time with Koh because Earthly Biochar needed a scientist onboard and we had so much work to do. We had developed a kiln, but we needed to test the efficacy of the biochar we were making to be certain our kiln could produce high quality biochars. That’s where I came in, I looked after the field trials and operations.  

‘At that time, I was living in Bournemouth and we connected with Kings Park Nursery, a plant nursery run by the local council, who helped us trial our biochar on 4,000 plants. The results were astounding. We improved the root development of the plants; we increased the growth rate and the flowering. The results were so impressive that the nursery asked if they could have a regular supply. We only had one kiln at the time which was designed for gardeners to use so it was small and portable, not suitable for a commercial operation. Making tonnes of biochar requires completely different infrastructure which we didn’t have, yet. 

‘At the same time, we’d been taking part in an accelerator programme called Plus-X, which secured us a £5000 cash grant, 12 months of mentoring and a focus on taking our working prototype to market, specifically, turning the kiln into a design-for-manufacture product. We finished the accelerator in 2019 with loads of ideas, a business plan, finished products but little cash. We bootstrapped the whole thing up to this point, using the £5k grant and our own savings.’ 

 ‘I spend a lot of time writing a lot of public funding applications and we recently won the Young Innovator of the Year Award from Innovate UK and the Princes Trust which has been so helpful. All our funding goes towards developing biochar production technology and setting up the UK’s first large-scale biochar production site.’  

Despite the initial cashflow challenges, Lottie hasn’t let anything halt the progress Earthly Biochar is making. ‘Since 2019, we have been strictly focusing on one goal’ Lottie explains, ‘capture and store as much carbon as possible through biochar production while benefitting soil health. It’s always been about climate change mitigation for me. 

‘Some level of climate change is inevitable. In my opinion, we need to mitigate the worst of climate change whilst also adapting to living in a more extreme environment. The flash flooding and wildfires we’ve witnessed in the last two years are a very real reminder of climate change. We’re setting ambitious targets to reach net zero but we’re not moving fast enough. Biochar is the most immediate form of carbon capture but we’re 10 years behind other European countries in terms of production volumes and carbon sequestration. Why is that? It’s proven elsewhere. There isn’t a leader in the UK for biochar and that’s the role I believe I need to take.  

In 2020, Lottie moved to Devon and started a PhD studying biochar in more depth alongside running the company. ‘I became more interested in the academic research of biochar’ Lottie explains, ‘and realised there was some gaps in our understanding. I’m currently working on trialling biochar in different growing environments. As a result of the PhD, we’ve been able to take on two paid interns in the last couple of months who are helping us get ready to launch our latest biochar kiln model.’ 

Lottie’s research is driven by a powerful vision for the future and her hopes for the part Earthly Biochar will play in it: ‘I’m driven by a vision of every gardener in the UK adding biochar to their soil, it paints a beautiful picture of mass carbon sequestration which doesn’t cost the earth or take huge amounts of effort. It could happen tomorrow if enough people knew about it. 

‘I’m also driven by food security. As a species we live rather precariously. We are always three days away from food shortages because we depend so heavily on imported foods and supply chains. We haven’t yet figured out how to live resiliently. The threat of extreme weather events closing down our food supply chain is looming, and we must begin to rely on nationally grown food, and for that, good soil health is vital, and that’s where biochar comes in. It is an effective way to increase soil fertility – it increases the microbial life in the soil which is essential for healthy plants.  

Tackling the climate emergency is at the heart of Earthly Biochar and Lottie believes it can be the solution: ‘The recent IPCC report says we have 8 years until the worst of climate change is irreversible. Biochar is one of the many solutions to the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. What gives me hope is that biochar has so many other benefits, along with carbon capture and storage, that it shouldn’t be too hard to make this a reality. I hope my work inspires others to pick another solution to climate change and bring it to its full potential before it’s too late.’