Nabard to foray into carbon credits business

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Mumbai, Oct 6 : The state-run National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (Nabard), which is closely associated with the Centre’s Rs 71,000 crore debt waiver scheme for farmers, proposes to make its foray into carbon business (clean development mechanism).

Nabard, which has received a report prepared by working group, proposes to set up a BioCarbon fund on the lines of carbon fund formed by KfW. The bank will ink MoU with ICICI Bank or KfW for funding of green projects. Nabard has already initiated talks with a Delhi-based organisation DTZ to provide consultancy services for establishment of BioCarbon fund. The fund can be utilised for green project funding, capacity building, offsetting risks in carbon trading. “For making an effective foray into this arena, Nabard may set up a separate department of climate change so that focused attention to the CDM-related work can be ensured,” Nabard sources told FE on Monday.

The carbon fund will be used to promote international projects in renewable energy and energy efficiency in agriculture and rural development, acquire and disseminate knowledge and experience on carbon finance and the carbon market among the Nabard’s stakeholder communities and purchase Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) at competitive prices to reach reduction targets which can be used to trade in future or can be used to offset emissions emanating due to various operations.

Prima Facie, Nabard has identified five areas to tap business opportunities in climate change sphere. These include taking part in the CDM process such as consultancy, carbon trading and brokerage, availing of carbon credits through activities promoted, financed, refinanced by Nabard, creating projects and opportunities in agriculture and rural development, corporate social responsibility and technology transfer. “The primary focus may be to explore the opportunity of aggregating or bundling small projects. This is the greatest challenge faced while claiming small rural based projects under CDM. The success rate and risks faced by the earlier projects may also be studied,” the report said.