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The Green Credit Programme (GCP)
Context:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan officially unveiled the GCP on December 1, 2023, at the UN climate conference in Dubai (COP28).
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- The programme aligns with Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Sustainable Environment) and promotes “pro-planet” actions.
- The Union Environment Ministry notified the Green Credit Rules in October 2023, outlining the objectives and implementation mechanisms.
Overview of the GCP
- The Green Credit Programme (GCP) was launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2023.
- The scheme aims to incentivise voluntary participation in activities like plantations and water conservation in exchange for tradable credits.
- The Ministry of Law and Justice flagged concerns over the legality of its business model before the rollout.
Key Pilot Projects
- The pilot focuses on tree plantation and the eco-restoration of degraded lands.
- These efforts aim to improve the environment, with a focus on plantation and activities such as soil moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, and planting shrubs, grasses, and herbs.
Key Features
- The GCP invites voluntary participation from individuals, companies, industries, and entities in seven activities, including Tree plantation, Waste management, Water conservation, and Other sustainability-focused activities.
- Participants receive “green credits,” which can be traded in a domestic market.
- Credits can be used to meet sustainability targets or fulfil legal obligations.
- For instance, credits can be used to comply with compensatory afforestation requirements when forest land is diverted for development projects.
- Credits can also contribute to listed companies’ Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures under SEBI’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability framework.
How Green Credits are Calculated?
- Tree Plantation: One tree planted on registered land parcels is equivalent to one green credit, subject to specific conditions. A minimum density of 1,100 trees per hectare is required, based on the local silvi-climatic conditions.
- Pilot Details: The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), based in Dehradun, acts as the nodal administrator. Plantation activities are carried out in degraded land parcels (open forests, scrublands, wastelands) with a minimum size of five hectares.
- Progress: As of March 4, 2024, 2364 land parcels across 17 states have been registered, covering 54,669.46 hectares. A total of 384 entities have signed up, including 41 public-sector undertakings.
Criticisms and Controversies
- Incentivising Forest Diversion:
- Environmental critics have raised concerns that the GCP could encourage forest diversion by allowing compensatory afforestation to be satisfied with green credits instead of requiring land-based compensation.
- Critics argue that this could undermine the objectives of forest conservation laws, such as the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 2023, which mandates compensatory afforestation on non-forest lands when forest land is used for development.
- Plantations on Degraded Land:
- The program has been criticised for planting trees on degraded lands, scrublands, and open forests, which might damage valuable ecosystems. These lands may have unique ecological functions that could be disrupted by large-scale plantations.
- Experts argue that plantations on such lands do not provide the same biodiversity or ecological services as older, natural forests, and may not be a suitable replacement for mature forests that are being diverted for industrial use.
- Legal and Ecological Concerns:
- The program has also faced legal challenges. A Supreme Court intervention has questioned whether plantations under the GCP can truly replace the ecological value of old-growth forests.
- Critics worry that GCP credits could be used to compensate for the diversion of established forests rather than adding non-forest land into the national forest cover, as is required by existing laws.
- The February 2024 notification allowed for exchanging green credits for compensatory afforestation compliance, which critics claim undermines legal principles by not ensuring land-for-land compensation.
- Call for a Rollback:
- In April 2024, more than 100 environmental organisations and 400 citizens petitioned the government to rollback the GCP, expressing concerns that the scheme could lead to ecological harm by incentivising unsustainable practices and compensating for lost forest cover with plantations that are not ecologically equivalent.
The government may have to address
- The impact of forest land diversion.
- Survival and ecological effectiveness of plantations.
- Whether green credits genuinely contribute to conservation.
