New Delhi – The government has rewritten how green credits are earned for tree planting, replacing a count of saplings with a test of whether the trees are alive five years later.
Under the revised methodology, an applicant can claim credits only after five years of restoration work, and only where the land has reached at least 40 per cent canopy density. One credit is awarded per surviving tree.
What the old design got wrong
The Green Credit Rules were notified in October 2023 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, to encourage voluntary plantation and to build an inventory of degraded land available for afforestation.
Crediting planting rather than survival rewarded the cheapest possible activity. Saplings put in the ground count immediately. Whether they are watered, protected from grazing and still standing after a monsoon cycle is a different and far more expensive question.
Ecologists had raised exactly this objection when the methodology was first published. The revision concedes the point.
A five-year wait changes who can participate
Requiring five years of demonstrated survival before any credit issues transforms the economics. Capital goes in immediately and returns nothing for half a decade, with the risk of complete loss if canopy cover falls short.
That favours entities with patient capital and land tenure security, and disadvantages smaller participants. It is a defensible trade if the alternative is credits issued against trees that died in year two.
Credits that barely move
Green credits for tree plantation are non-transferable, except between a holding company and its subsidiaries. There is no open market, which distinguishes the programme sharply from carbon credits under the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme.
The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education administers the programme. Its central test will be whether canopy assessments at the five-year mark are verified independently or self-declared.
Source: Green Credit Rules notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and revised MoEFCC methodology for tree plantation credits.
