What is the name of your organization?
Biome
What is the name of your solution?
Biome Board
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Upcycles rice‑straw farm waste into sustainable, high‑quality, affordable plywood & MDF alternatives for construction.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Hyderabad
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
India
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
India is at a tipping point where environmental damage, economic strain, and public health collide.
We fell over five million trees each year for plywood and MDF. Forests cannot recover, agro‑forestry lags, and imports—costing ₹580 billion last year—fill the gap, shrinking biodiversity and widening the trade deficit.
Farmers in the north burn more than 100 million tonnes of rice straw annually, creating almost 40 percent of Delhi’s winter smog and fuelling asthma, heart disease, and climate‑warming emissions.
Construction worsens matters: the sector produces nearly 40 percent of global CO₂ and still relies on formaldehyde‑bound engineered wood that off‑gasses toxic VOCs indoors.
The common thread is wasted biomass. Crop residue is viewed as rubbish, so farmers torch it. The same linear mindset logs forests and imports timber while choking city air and rural opportunity.
Deforestation, pollution, toxic materials, and farm distress are not separate tales; they form one systemic crisis demanding an integrated, scalable solution.
What is your solution?
BiomeBoard turns rice straw—the residue farmers usually burn—into a high‑performance panel that replaces plywood and medium‑density fibreboard. By swapping straw for timber we spare forests, protect biodiversity, and reduce costly timber imports.
Our proprietary resin is formaldehyde‑free; it bonds fibres into sheets that resist water, fire, and insects while emitting only trace levels of volatile organic compounds, so indoor air stays clean. The process is energy‑efficient and cuts life‑cycle carbon emissions by roughly eighty to ninety percent.
Priced at about fifty to seventy‑five rupees per square foot, the panels fit mainstream budgets. We buy straw directly from farmers through a geotagged, fully traceable network, giving rural households steady income and ending the polluting field‑burns that smother northern skies.
Made in standard eight‑by‑four‑foot sheets and thicknesses of six to twenty‑five millimetres, BiomeBoard drops seamlessly into furniture, cabinetry, partitions, and other construction uses—advancing green‑building goals while powering a circular rural economy.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
BiomeBoard creates value across multiple stakeholder groups:
1/ Farmers gain a stable income stream from crop residue that is otherwise burned. At full scale, we aim to offer farmers up to ₹12,000/year—nearly 20% of average farm income.
2/ Builders, architects, and furniture manufacturers get access to a high-quality, toxin-free, sustainable board that helps meet green mandates and avoid VOC-related liability.
3/ Consumers, especially in schools and homes, benefit from safer indoor environments free from formaldehyde and VOCs.
By reducing open-field burning and enabling low-emissions straw valorization at the farm level, Biome also contributes to decarbonizing the food supply chain — helping drive a shift towards a low-carbon and nutritious global food system.
