BiofuelCircle, a leading digital platform for biomass and biofuels, has partnered with the Indian School of Business (ISB) to enhance the forest economy by way of participating in the bio-energy sector. The collaboration aims to establish large-scale, efficient, and sustainable value chains in the bioenergy sector, utilising forests as a reliable and eco-friendly source of raw materials, specifically selected non-timber forest products and seasonal forest products, BiofuelCircle announced today.
ISB’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy, one of India’s public policy think tanks, engages with policymakers and practitioners. Among its many collaborations with state governments, and public and private entities, the Institute has undertaken an initiative towards enabling a sustaining and thriving Forest Economy (IoFE – Initiative on the Forest Economy).
“The lynchpin of the initiative is a partnership between local communities as the custodians of forest resources; industry leaders using the products of that forest, and government agencies facilitating and regulating the creation of jobs and wealth,” BiofuelCircle informed today.
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This partnership will promote sustainable bioenergy and create sources of income for local communities. The collaboration shall combine community forest ownership, and establish formal industry linkages and government partnerships to achieve this vision.
Prof. Ashwini Chhatre, Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, International School of Business (ISB), said, “India’s forests have massive potential to evolve as hubs for bioenergy production and will generate substantial revenue nationally, in addition to contributing to climate change mitigation significantly. Forest landscapes, including degraded forests, provide huge opportunities – both, economic and ecological and, can channel investments in the production of bioenergy through bamboo and other forest tree species’ plantations. To enable long-term sustainability, community ownership of forests provides incentives for communities to invest in the protection of their forests and manage the forests for long-term sustainability along with ensuring that the other services that forests provide are not compromised in the present and future.”
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ISB is currently implementing this initiative in three states across India, The pilots will serve as laboratories to develop a scalable and sustainable solution for the procurement of forest-based industrial raw materials through multistakeholder partnerships between industry, government, and communities. One such pilot is already underway in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh where one of the focused seasonal forest products is Pine – cones & needles (deodar, chil and kail). BiofuelCircle, via its digital platform, will map transparent value chains, streamline sourcing logistics, and enable large-scale transactions between community-owned enterprises and buyers. It will play its role of connecting the local communities with a number of industries that are currently buying their biofuels through its platform. They will cultivate a competitive marketplace for bioenergy from community-owned enterprises. Leveraging their bioenergy partnerships, BiofuelCircle will help build robust business models within forest-based communities with secure tenure.
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Tushar Lowalekar, Founding Member and Chief Business Officer, BiofuelCircle said, “The forest economy in India economically contributes to a variety of sectors but when it comes to bioenergy, it lacks scale. ISB, through its alliances with state governments, is attempting to bring scale and organisation to this effort. We are happy to be partnering with ISB in offering a technology-led solution and creating working models with industry participation, which we believe will help the forest sector and grow the bio-energy sector by bringing in additional sources of fuels. The demand in the bio-energy sector is poised for quantum growth and such an initiative will only help the forest dwellers benefit from the growth.”
BiofuelCircle’s digital platform has set up a three-sided e-marketplace connecting buyers and sellers along with service providers for transportation, warehousing, and other supply chain services. BiofuelCircle has created a digital ecosystem to cater to the diversity of participants where businesses from industrial and rural sectors can transact fairly.
