India Government releases draft rules for ‘Green Credit’ Scheme to incentivize and promote environment-friendly actions.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has released the draft rules of their ‘Green Credit Programme (GCP)’ which aims to incentivize in the form of “Green Credits” for individuals, industries, farmer producer organisations, cooperatives, forestry enterprises, sustainable agriculture enterprises, urban and rural local bodies, private sectors, industries and organisations for environment positive actions. Under the scheme, entities can earn tradable “green credits” through a market-based mechanism.
Sectors identified for the programme with respective objectives are as follows:
- Tree Plantation-based Green Credit: To promote activities for increasing the green cover across the country through tree plantation and related activities.
- Water-based Green Credit: To promote water conservation, water harvesting and water use efficiency/savings, including treatment and reuse of wastewater.
- Sustainable Agriculture based Green Credit: To promote natural and regenerative agricultural practices and land restoration to improve productivity, soil health and nutritional value of food produced.
- Waste Management based Green Credit: To promote sustainable and improved practices for waste management, including collection, segregation and treatment.
- Air Pollution Reduction based Green Credit: To promote measures for reducing air pollution and other pollution abatement activities.
- Mangrove Conservation and Restoration based Green Credit: To promote measures for conservation and restoration of mangroves.
- Ecomark based Green Credit: To encourage manufacturers to obtain Ecomark label for their goods and services.
- Sustainable building and infrastructure based Green Credit: To encourage the construction of buildings and other infrastructure using sustainable technologies and materials.
Proposed methodology of generating Green Credits:
- Thresholds and benchmarks will be developed for each Green Credit activity for generating and issuance of Green Credits. In case of any obligation under any law, the thresholds and benchmarks will be aligned with that obligation.
- 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.
- 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
There will trading platform for the exchange of Green Credits be established by the administrator (The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education is the Administrator of the Programme.). The Green Credit Programme shall be based on voluntary participation of all stakeholders.
Source: Draft-GCP-Notification-Inviting-Comments-27062023.pdf (moef.gov.in)
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