The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has notified draft rules for ‘Green Credit Programme’.
What is Green Credit?
‘Green credit’ is a singular unit of an incentive provided for a specified activity, delivering a positive impact on the environment.
It can be earned by individuals, farmer-producer organisations (FPO), industries, rural and urban local bodies, among other stakeholders for their environment positive actions.
Programme - The Green Credit Programme (GCP) launched, was first announced in the 2023-24 budget under Mission LiFE.
The Ministry of Environment issued the draft ‘Green Credit Programme Implementation Rules 2023’ under the Environment Protection Act of 1986.
How will the program be implemented?
The Green Credit Programme (GCP) aims to leverage a competitive market-based approach and incentivise voluntary environmental actions of various stakeholders.
The environment ministry has identified 8 select activities for which green credit can be earned.
The 8 sectors
Tree plantation-based green credit
Water-based green credit
Sustainable agriculture-based green credit
Waste management-based green credit
Air pollution reduction-based green credit
Mangrove conservation and restoration-based green credit
Eco mark based green credit
Sustainable building and infrastructure-based green credit
Thresholds and benchmarks will be developed for each green credit activity under the programme.
The mechanism will be implemented in a phased manner.
Trade Market - The green credits will be tradable and be made available for trading on a domestic market platform.
The Trading Service Provider accredited by the GCP administrator will establish the trading platform for the exchange of Green Credit Certificates.
Implementation - A steering committee headed by the environment secretary will govern the implementation of GCP.
The steering committee will not only approve procedures for institutionalising the GCP.
It also approve its rules and regulations and make recommendations to the central government for issuance of Green Credit Certificate.
Administrator - The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) will be the administrator of the programme.
ICFREwill manage, monitor and operate the entire programme.
The institute will develop guidelines, processes and procedures for implementation of the programme.
What are the advantages of GCP?
It accounts for and incentivise individual and community actions, besides corporate and businesses.
The environmental activity generating Green Credits under Green Credit Programme (GCP) may have climate co-benefits such as reduction or removal of carbon emissions.
Such activity may accrue both green credits as well as carbon credits which may be sold under Green Credit market or carbon market respectively.
Helps to realise the vision of ‘Mission LiFE’ through pro-planet people and entities.
The GCP will encourage private sector industries and companies as well as other entities to meet their existing obligations, stemming from other legal frameworks.
What are the concerns around GCP?
There is a strong risk of greenwashing through such market based mechanisms.
It also raises serious questions about how rigour of monitoring will be maintained.
