Greenhouse Gases Emission Intensity Target Rules, 2025

What it does

The rules, notified as G.S.R. 739(E) on 8 October 2025, give each plant named in their Schedule a target for the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions, which is the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent per unit of product. The rules apply for two compliance years, 2025-26 and 2026-27. A plant that meets its target earns certificates for the margin. A plant that misses must buy certificates for the gap and surrender them.

They are made by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and they work with the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, 2023, which supplies the certificates and the market in which they are traded. The two instruments come from different sources of power. A missed target is therefore an environmental default, enforced by the Central Pollution Control Board, and not an energy efficiency lapse under the Energy Conservation Act, 2001.

Who it binds

It binds the obligated entities listed by name, address and registration number in the Schedule. On the site's count, the original Schedule names 282 plants: 13 in aluminium, 186 in cement, 30 in chlor-alkali and 53 in pulp and paper. The amendment of 13 January 2026 added 208 more, in secondary aluminium, petroleum refining, petrochemicals and textiles, which makes 490 in all. A plant that is not named has no target under these rules, though it may take part in the market through the offset route.

What has changed, and when

• The rules came into force on publication on 8 October 2025, after a draft of 16 April 2025.
• The amendment of 13 January 2026, G.S.R. 25(E), renumbered the Schedule as the First Schedule and added a Second Schedule. Its entries for the first year are worked out pro rata over a shorter period.
• The rules cover compliance years up to 2026-27. A later cycle will need further instruments, and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency's procedure treats the targets as annual figures within a three-year trajectory.

What turns on it in practice

The duties are set out in the rules and the Bureau's procedure. A plant must achieve its target in each compliance year, surrender certificates equal to any shortfall, register on the Indian Carbon Market portal and file documents in the manner prescribed. The procedure attaches times to them: a monitoring plan near the start of a cycle, a verified performance assessment within three months of its end, and a final status of compliance within nine months.

The arithmetic is the point. Where a plant misses, the shortfall is the achieved intensity minus the target, multiplied by output, and the plant must buy that many certificates. If it does not comply, the Central Pollution Control Board imposes environmental compensation at twice the average price at which certificates traded in that cycle, after hearing the plant, and payable within 90 days of the order. Where a plant files nothing, the shortfall is worked out as if its achieved intensity were its baseline, so silence is treated as no improvement.

For a business, the consequences are commercial. A cement or aluminium producer needs a plan for filing, for verification and for buying certificates before the cycle ends. A buyer of such a plant, or a lender to it, should ask for the baseline, the target, the record of filings and any certificates held, and should price the open shortfall at the double rate if it has not been covered.

The site's note on plant-level targets works through these steps, and the amendment to the rules is listed with it as a related instrument.