Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants which have ability to survive variety of climatic and edaphic conditions. Apart from found naturally in forest, it could be grown marginal and degraded lands, elevated grounds, along field bunds and river banks. Bamboo has thousands of economic applications; hence people call them ‘green gold’. Bamboo also enhances rain water retention and soil moisture conservation which ultimately check soil erosion.

Bamboo has several advantages over tree species in terms of sustainability and carbon fixing capacity. Bamboo is one of the most productive and fastest growing plants on the planet. The fastest-growing species among the bamboos may grow up to 1.2 m a day. This unique growing capacity makes bamboo a valuable sink for carbon storage.

India is the major bamboo producing country with almost 11.4 million hectares area under it. There are different reports on the number of genera and species of bamboo found in India. As per the latest compilation 18 genera and 128 species were reported (Seethalakshmi and Kumar 1998). Of the total species found in India about 20 are commercially used.

Bamboo minimizes CO2 gases and generates up to 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees. 1 hectare (2.2 acres) of bamboo sequesters up to 62 tons of CO2/year, whereas 1 hectare of young forest sequesters 15 tons of CO2/year. (Source: J. Janssen, Technical University Eindhoven, 2000). Thus Bamboo could sequester 04 times more CO2 compared to same area under other young trees.

Beema bamboo (Bambusa Balcooa) is developed from the open pollinated population of bamboo found in West Bengal, followed by further selection and tissue culture work to improve and stabilize its yield and made the plant free from disease.  The Beema bamboo plant is not genetically modified organism and it is a product of conventional breeding which no way involved in gene modification. It could Bamboo sequester 150 tons of CO2/year in 1 hectare.

Per capita carbon emission estimates for India are 1.5 tons/year. To offset CO2 emission of India it would require just plant 4 Beema bamboo / person. The degraded lands and wasteland have good potential to meet this requirement. There is also possibility to use treated sewage for growing this bamboo stock. At the same time only one Beema bamboo is good enough to produce yearly Oxygen requirement of a person.

Along with other products, bamboo biochar has economic as well as ecological value. Biochar is a carbon-rich organic material, an organic amendment, and a by-product derived from biomass by pyrolysis under high-temperature and low oxygen conditions. The elemental composition of biochar generally include carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and some lower nutrient element, such as K, Ca, Na, and Mg (Zhang et al. 2015). Biochar was reported to improve not only soil chemical and physical properties but also soil microbial properties. Biochar could store nutrients and be used as slow-release fertilizer which could reduce need for fertilizer inputs. The production of chemical fertilizer requires energy (burning fossil fuel) and its soil application releases nitrous oxide, which contributes towards GHG emission. Thus, the reduction in fertilizer input will reduce GHG. Like bamboo, biochar could also be produced from different agricultural waste readily available with farmers, which is otherwise burned.