Greening waste

Eco Securities, a global carbon credit player, is planning an awareness project in Rajasthan.

Eco Securities, a global player in carbon credit, plans to create awareness among small and medium businesses in Rajasthan on carbon credit that can be generated from clean development mechanisms (CDMs). Eco Securities is the world leaders in the business of originating, developing and commercialising carbon credit from greenhouse gas emission reduction projects. It is one of the world's leading buyer of carbon credit. With a network of offices and representatives in 20 countries on five continents.

The company plans to invest Rs 5 crore in different projects in the state and wants to increase registered projects under CDM programmes by at least 50 per cent in two years' time. Speaking with Business Standard managing director of the Eco Securities India Pranav Nahar, said, "There are around 25 registered projects in Rajasthan in the SME sector and we want to add new 50 projects on our own in this category."

Eco Securities will be opening offices in Jaipur to facilitate its awareness programme and it will guide SMEs in areas like energy efficiency, renewable energy, agriculture, waste handling and forestry projects.

In Rajasthan the company plans to identify projects, invest in getting CDM approvals and wait for its returns till the credit can be monetised. Said Nahar, "The entrepreneur will not have to invest anything, we will do the identification, the processing as well as invest in getting the CDM credit. Our returns will come when the project starts trading in the credit. We take all the risks, so that if the CDM doesn't come through, then the enterprise doesn't lose anything."

Till now this sector has been neglected by the carbon market despite the fact that it constitutes about 40 per cent of the Indian industry. Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra have the potential to generate 50 per cent of Certified Emission Reductions (CER) units from grassroot level activity in these areas. Rajasthan will act as a model state for replicating the success that would be achieved during the course of the project in other states as well, primarily Gujarat and Maharashtra, said Nahar.

"There has been an inability to reach out to SMEs in large scale awareness programmes that have been conducted previously. Also, transaction costs involved in CDM are often too high for a small project developer to bear, thus excluding them from CDM benefits. In addition, there is a general lack of comprehensive research in this area to really establish the potential players within the SME sector, opportunity analysis and collation of data," said Nahar.

"India has potential to generate around 700 million carbon credit but it is expected that only 350 million credit will actually realise as the failure rate is pretty high. Our aim through this project is to reduce the failure to the extent possible," Nahar said.