Indian government introduces draft for Green Credits, to reward environmental initiatives

To create a mass movement around environmental positive actions and realise the vision of "Mission LiFE" through pro-planet-people and entities to achieve India’s net zero goal of 2070, the Indian government is coming up with Green Credits. The Green Credits Programme is designed to incentivise voluntary environmental actions undertaken by individuals, private sectors, small scale industries, cooperatives, forestry enterprises and farmer-produce organisations for their environmental actions. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has also notified the draft ‘Green Credit Programme (GCP)’ implementation rules 2023.

Proposed to be launched at the national level, the programme will help in creating a competitive market-based approach for Green Credits thereby incentivising voluntary environmental actions of various stakeholders. According to the notification, apart from incentivizing individual/community behavior, the Green Credit Programme will encourage private sector industries and companies as well as other entities to meet their existing obligations, stemming from other legal frameworks, by taking actions which are able to converge with activities relevant for generating or buying Green Credits.

"India has truly strengthened its global leadership towards environmental sustainability through a pioneering and unique regulatory step to introduce the Green Credit Programme, which is far beyond just carbon but encompasses all major attributes of environment and social sustainability. One of the major highlights of the draft notification is to provide regulatory provisions to account for individual and community actions, besides corporate and businesses, and incentivize them,” said Manish Dabkara, Chairman and MD of the BSE listed EKI Energy Services ltd, which is a market leader in Carbon Trading.

For the implementation of the Green Credit Programme, the government has identified sectors to start with, which include increasing the green cover through tree plantation across the country, promoting water conservation, water harvesting and water use efficiency/savings, including treatment and reuse of wastewater, promoting natural and regenerative agricultural practices and land restoration to improve productivity, soil health and nutritional value of food produced, waste management,  reducing air pollution, conservation and restoration of mangroves,  sustainable building and infrastructure and more.

As these Green Credits will be over and above the current discourse of carbon credits, Dabkara eyes it as one of the co-benefits of the Green Credit Programme. “It provisions to provide incentives for sustainable agriculture, forestry, water conservation, air pollution reduction, waste management, sustainable building and infrastructure and eco-labelling activities,” he added.

And as the environmental activity generating Green Credits under Green Credit Programme may have climate co-benefits such as reduction or removal of carbon emissions, it may also get Carbon Credits from the same activity under carbon market, points out the notification published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Thresholds and benchmarks will be developed for each Green Credit activity for generating and issuance of Green Credits. To maintain fungibility across sectors, the environmental outcome, achievable by any Green Credit activity, will be based on equivalence of resource requirement, parity of scale, scope, size and other relevant parameters, and will be considered for allocation of one unit of Green Credit in respect of each activity. Even digital processes will be developed and established for the Programme including self-assessments of eligible Green Credit activities, registration of activities, issuance of Green Credits, monitoring of performance and other relevant processes.

Also Read: Clicking up the ladder: Behind the phenomenal rise of online management education