MONEY PLANT

Firms are popping up to help people and companies plant saplings. Reasons for this green consciousness range from earning carbon credits to a desire to fight deforestation

- Naina Gautam

On the northern outskirts of Mumbai, a red heart is painted on a green board. On the heart is written Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi Forest. The board is on the edge of a forest that actor Kareena Kapoor Khan had planted when her son Taimur turned one in 2017.

Mumbai-based dietician Rujuta Diwekar had helped Khan in creating this green patch. Diwekar wrote on Instagram: "The forest has about 100 trees on a 100 sq ft plot. The trees are as young as Taimur, even younger, actually each of them is a local, native, climate resilient species..." It is not only celebrities who are going green. Take the example of Delhi-based artist Smriti Chaturvedi Shankar who has planted saplings to mark her son's birthday. "I planted a few trees in farmlands with the help of farmers. It is a way of giving back to nature," she says.

Planting trees is trending and entrepreneurs have sniffed a business opportunity. Not just birthdays but also on Valentine's Day and Women's Day. A popular tree-planting website, recently, offered to plant trees on the occasion of the pran pratishtha ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The site charges Rs 199 for a single sapling and Rs 14,925 for 75 trees for birthdays. Prices are bumped up on occasions such as Valentine's DayRs 299 for one and Rs 2.99 lakh for 1,000 trees. Planting for a once-in-alifetime event is more expensive.

Business is Booming

India Inc. too has taken up tree planting in a big way. Clients include companies that have active corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, want to meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliances and chase carbon credits.

"Companies are increasingly publishing sustainability reports to communicate their environmental and social performance to stakeholders," says Nidhi Singh, chief executive and co-founder of Pune-based tree-plantation company Grow Billion Trees.