Industry body Ficci said that while the clean development mechanism (CDM) initiative has penetrated the conscience of a wide-cross section of Indian industry with respect to the scale of operations and geographical stretch, the country's corporates have adopted a fairly conservative approach on CDM.
CDM projects aim at reduced emission of greenhouse gases in a cost-effective manner. Such projects include wind and solar power farms, besides initiatives to cut industrial and automobile emissions, among other things.
"Even though ONGC, SAIL and IOC have emerged as front- runners in terms of their engagement in the CDM, the participation of PSUs in CDM remains low, with 125 projects, representing 7 per cent of the total CDM portfolio," it said.
Some sectors with a huge potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation -- such as automobiles, transport, real estate, pharmaceuticals, fertilisers and FMCG -- have abysmally low participation in CDM initiatives, it added.
It said though a number of CDM projects have been taken up in sectors such as oil and gas, textiles, sugar and paper by the top companies, in relation to the size of the sector and GHG mitigation potential, "the participation is fairly low".
It said that as of April, 2010, there were 1,633 projects in the Indian CDM portfolio. Over 1,100 companies representing almost 60 sectors were engaged in CDM projects.
Most Indian companies have engaged in renewable energy CDM projects, besides energy efficiency and biomass projects. "Wind projects dominate the Indian CDM portfolio," it added.
Leading oil and gas PSU ONGC had the most CDM projects, with 17 under its belt, followed by ITC (16), SAIL (13), RIL (12) and Tata Steel (10), it said.
It also said that Indian industry's sustained interest in global carbon credit markets would depend on factors such as long-term certainty in the climate change regulatory architecture and a clear-cut direction on continuity of Kyoto Protocol initiatives.
"These factors would provide a significant push for CDM and attract more companies to engage in CDM," it added.