From Net Zero Promises to Net Zero Evidence: Understanding India’s New Net Zero Portal
For years, companies in India have announced Net Zero ambitions.
Some have committed to reducing emissions by a certain percentage. Others have announced renewable-energy targets, carbon-neutral operations, sustainable supply chains or long-term Net Zero goals.
But one question has remained more difficult than making the announcement itself:
What happens after the promise is made?
That question has now become more important with the launch of India’s Net Zero Portal, a national digital platform designed to bring voluntary Net Zero commitments and progress onto a common platform.
Launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on 16 September 2026, the portal provides organisations with a structured mechanism to register their Net Zero commitments, disclose greenhouse-gas emissions, identify their target year, describe their transition strategy and report progress over time. The launch took place alongside the new National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) Dashboard, which is intended to track implementation of India's national climate missions.
The distinction between the two platforms matters. The Net Zero Portal is primarily about organisational commitments and disclosures. The NAPCC Dashboard is about monitoring national climate-mission implementation.
For businesses, however, the more interesting development is the first one.
India now has a central digital window through which companies and other organisations can put their Net Zero intentions, emissions information and progress into a common national framework.
That does not automatically make a company Net Zero.
It does not certify an organisation as Net Zero.
And it does not automatically create carbon credits.
What it potentially changes is something more fundamental:
visibility.
And once climate commitments become more visible, the quality of the information supporting those commitments becomes much more important.
A new layer in India’s climate architecture
India has already built several pieces of its climate-policy and sustainability architecture.
Listed companies face sustainability-related disclosure requirements through frameworks such as SEBI's Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR). India is also developing its domestic carbon market through the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS).
The Net Zero Portal adds another layer.
Its purpose is to facilitate voluntary registration of Net Zero commitments and provide a centralised platform for collecting commitments and progress. The Ministry says the portal is intended to support transparency, credibility and accountability in the country's Net Zero journey.
This is important because Net Zero is no longer simply a statement appearing in a company's annual report or website.
A meaningful Net Zero commitment requires an understanding of where emissions come from, how they are measured, what reductions are technically feasible, how quickly those reductions can happen and what residual emissions may remain.
The portal is therefore potentially more useful when treated not as a declaration form, but as the beginning of a long-term climate-management process.
What exactly can a company report?
The portal asks organisations to provide information covering their profile, Net Zero commitment, emissions scopes, strategy and annual progress.
Companies are encouraged to report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, while Scope 3 reporting remains desirable rather than mandatory. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by the organisation. Scope 2 covers emissions associated with purchased electricity, heat or steam. Scope 3 covers other indirect emissions across the value chain, including areas such as purchased materials, transportation, outsourced activities and waste disposal.
This distinction is critical.
Imagine a manufacturing company that consumes large quantities of electricity.
It may successfully reduce its Scope 2 emissions by purchasing renewable electricity. But if its manufacturing process still consumes fossil fuels, its Scope 1 emissions may remain substantial.
Similarly, a company may improve its own factory operations while continuing to purchase carbon-intensive raw materials or transport products long distances. Those impacts can appear in Scope 3.
This is why Net Zero cannot be reduced to one number.
It is a system of emissions, sources, activities, interventions and timelines.
The quality of the final Net Zero claim will depend heavily on how accurately those pieces are measured.
The first important discipline: establish a baseline
Before a company can credibly say how much it will reduce emissions, it needs to know where it is starting.
That means establishing an emissions baseline.
For example, consider a hypothetical manufacturing company with annual greenhouse-gas emissions of 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂e).
Suppose the company's initial assessment shows:
- 40,000 tCO₂e from fuel combustion and other direct operations;
- 25,000 tCO₂e from purchased electricity; and
- 35,000 tCO₂e from its wider value chain.
The company cannot simply announce that it will become Net Zero by 2050 and consider the work complete.
It needs to understand what can actually be reduced.
Perhaps energy efficiency can reduce electricity consumption by 15%. Renewable electricity could address a substantial portion of the remaining Scope 2 emissions. Process improvements could reduce fuel consumption. Electrification might eliminate some fossil-fuel use. Low-carbon fuels could address applications that cannot easily be electrified.
Only after this exercise can a realistic transition pathway begin to emerge.
The Net Zero Portal's emphasis on emissions information, methodology and annual progress makes this baseline exercise particularly important. The portal allows organisations to identify the methodology used to calculate emissions, including recognised approaches such as the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1, and asks for the source of information supporting reported data.
That is a useful shift in mindset.
Net Zero starts with measurement, not messaging.
Net Zero is a pathway, not a target year
One of the easiest mistakes companies can make is to focus on the final year.
"Net Zero by 2050."
"Net Zero by 2040."
"Carbon neutral by 2035."
The date is easy to communicate.
The difficult part is explaining what happens between today and that date.
The Net Zero Portal allows organisations to identify their target year and encourages the reporting of interim milestones. It also allows entities to set realistic target years based on sector-specific challenges and feasibility.
That means a credible corporate Net Zero strategy should increasingly resemble a roadmap.
A company targeting Net Zero by 2050 might establish milestones for 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2045.
Each milestone could address measurable indicators such as:
- absolute GHG emissions;
- emissions intensity;
- renewable-energy share;
- fossil-fuel consumption;
- energy efficiency;
- electrification;
- low-carbon fuel adoption;
- waste management;
- supply-chain emissions; and
- residual emissions requiring neutralisation or removal.
This is where the Portal could become more meaningful over time.
The question will not simply be:
"Has this company declared Net Zero?"
It will increasingly become:
"What has the company actually achieved since it declared Net Zero?"
Acknowledgement is not certification
There is another distinction companies should understand clearly.
Organisations that successfully declare their commitments on the portal receive an acknowledgement from MoEF&CC for their efforts.
But acknowledgement should not be confused with certification, assurance or independent verification of a company's Net Zero claim.
The portal itself states that verification is not mandatory, although internal or external/third-party verification is encouraged to improve credibility.
This distinction is extremely important for corporate communication.
A company should not take registration or acknowledgement on the portal and present it as evidence that the Government of India has certified its operations as Net Zero.
Those are two very different things.
The portal creates a reporting and visibility mechanism.
The credibility of the underlying numbers still depends on measurement practices, methodologies, data quality and, where appropriate, independent assurance or verification.
The real challenge may be the data
This could ultimately be the most important issue surrounding the new platform.
India does not lack corporate climate commitments.
The harder challenge is producing consistent, reliable and comparable emissions information behind those commitments.
Consider two companies that both report a 30% reduction in emissions.
Company A may have reduced its actual emissions through energy efficiency, renewable electricity and process improvements.
Company B may report an emissions-intensity reduction because its production increased substantially while absolute emissions remained relatively high.
Both numbers could be technically valid.
But they tell very different stories.
This is why companies need to be clear about whether they are measuring absolute emissions, emissions intensity or another indicator.
They also need to document assumptions, emission factors, organisational boundaries, activity data and calculation methodologies.
The Net Zero Portal's requirement for reporting methodology and sources of information provides a useful structure for this discipline.
Over time, better data could become one of the portal's most valuable outcomes.
Where CBG and biomethane enter the picture
This development is particularly relevant to India's growing Compressed Biogas (CBG) and biomethane sector.
CBG projects can potentially contribute to corporate decarbonisation when they replace fossil natural gas or other higher-emission fuels, particularly when they utilise waste and agricultural residues.
But the climate benefit of a CBG project is not simply determined by the fact that the gas is called "bio."
The complete system matters.
A credible assessment may need to consider:
What was the feedstock?
Was it agricultural residue, municipal organic waste, sewage-related feedstock, food-processing waste, manure or another material?
What would have happened to the waste without the project?
Would it have decomposed uncontrolled, been landfilled, burned, composted or otherwise managed?
How much methane is captured?
Methane leakage can materially affect the climate performance of a biomethane system.
How much energy does the plant consume?
Digestion, gas upgrading, compression, transport and other operations require energy.
What fuel is being displaced?
Replacing diesel, LPG, fossil natural gas or another energy source can produce different emissions benefits.
What happens to the digestate?
The treatment and utilisation of digestate can also influence the overall emissions balance.
These questions are not academic.
They determine the quality of the emissions-reduction claim.
A well-designed CBG project can therefore become more than an energy project. It can potentially become one component of a company's wider decarbonisation pathway.
A CBG project is not automatically a carbon credit
This is where another important distinction needs to be made.
A company may use CBG as part of its emissions-reduction strategy.
That does not automatically mean that the company has generated carbon credits.
India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme is a separate framework.
The CCTS provides for both a compliance mechanism and an offset mechanism. Under the offset mechanism, non-obligated entities can register eligible projects for greenhouse-gas emission reduction, removal or avoidance and seek issuance of Carbon Credit Certificates subject to the applicable procedures, methodologies, validation and verification requirements.
In other words, there are two separate questions:
The answer to the first question does not automatically establish the answer to the second.
This distinction is particularly important for companies considering CBG investments partly because of the potential carbon value.
The carbon-credit opportunity is becoming more structured
India's CCTS was notified in 2023 and subsequently developed to include an offset mechanism for non-obligated entities. The Ministry of Power has stated that projects under the offset mechanism can be registered for GHG emission reduction, removal or avoidance, with issuance dependent on validation and verification.
For project developers, this means that emissions accounting should ideally be designed into the project from the beginning.
A CBG developer should not wait until the plant has been operating for several years and then ask:
"Can we generate carbon credits from this project?"
The better question is:
"How should the project be designed and measured from day one so that its emissions performance can be demonstrated under the applicable framework?"
That can influence decisions about baseline studies, meters, gas-quality monitoring, methane-leak detection, electricity consumption, feedstock records, transport data, operating logs and third-party verification.
In other words, MRV—measurement, reporting and verification, is not an administrative afterthought.
It can become part of project design.
India's Net Zero Portal and the CCTS are not the same thing
This distinction deserves to be made very clearly because the two developments will increasingly appear in the same corporate climate discussions.
| Area | India Net Zero Portal | Carbon Credit Trading Scheme |
|---|---|---|
| Main purpose | Register and disclose Net Zero commitments and progress | Carbon market framework |
| Participation | Voluntary reporting | Compliance and voluntary offset mechanisms |
| Main focus | Corporate/entity climate commitments and progress | Eligible emission-reduction/removal/avoidance activities and carbon-market mechanisms |
| Verification | Not mandatory on the Net Zero Portal | Validation/verification requirements apply under relevant CCTS procedures |
| Automatically creates carbon credits? | No | Eligible projects may seek issuance under applicable mechanisms |
| Primary value | Transparency, disclosure and tracking | Carbon-market recognition and trading |
The practical message for companies is simple:
A Net Zero commitment, a Net Zero disclosure, an emissions reduction and a carbon credit are four related but different concepts.
Confusing them can create problems in corporate sustainability reporting and climate claims.
What about renewable energy, offsets and removals?
A serious Net Zero strategy normally requires a hierarchy of action.
The first priority should generally be understanding and reducing the emissions generated by the company's own activities and value chain.
That could involve energy efficiency, process changes, electrification, renewable electricity, low-carbon fuels, waste reduction, material efficiency and supply-chain interventions.
Only after substantial reductions are pursued does the question of residual emissions become more important.
The Net Zero Portal itself recognises pathways involving clean-energy transition, energy efficiency, technological interventions and carbon removals, as applicable.
This is particularly relevant to companies developing projects around CBG, renewable energy, waste management, bioenergy, green hydrogen or other low-carbon technologies.
The strongest business case is often not simply:
"This project can generate carbon credits."
It may instead be:
"This project reduces real emissions, creates an operational or energy benefit, improves resource efficiency and may have additional carbon-market value if it meets the relevant requirements."
That is a much more robust way to think about climate investment.
The wider ecosystem is already developing
The Net Zero Portal should not be viewed in isolation.
India's climate architecture includes multiple interconnected initiatives.
There is the national Net Zero objective of 2070. There are India's Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. There are sectoral energy-transition initiatives, renewable-energy programmes, waste-to-energy programmes, sustainability disclosures and the developing carbon market.
For example, MNRE's Waste-to-Energy programme has supported projects producing biogas, BioCNG, enriched biogas and CBG from urban, industrial and agricultural wastes and residues, with Central Financial Assistance subject to the applicable scheme conditions.
This creates an increasingly interesting environment for projects that sit at the intersection of:
waste management + renewable energy + decarbonisation + circular economy + carbon markets.
CBG is one example of that intersection.
A company considering registration should start internally—not with the portal
For an organisation considering registration, the most important preparation should happen before the form is opened.
The company should first establish its organisational boundary and understand which facilities and activities are included.
It should then establish its emissions baseline and document the calculation methodology.
Next should come the identification of major emission sources and the development of a realistic reduction pathway.
Only after that should the company decide what target year and interim milestones it can credibly support.
The company should also establish internal ownership.
Net Zero should not exist only within the sustainability department.
Finance needs to understand the capital implications. Operations needs to implement efficiency measures. Procurement needs to address supply-chain emissions. Engineering needs to evaluate technology options. Human resources may need to support behavioural and organisational changes. Senior management needs to understand the trajectory and approve investment.
A Net Zero commitment without operational ownership risks becoming a communications exercise.
A Net Zero commitment linked to budgets, projects, responsibilities and measurable KPIs becomes a management system.
What a mature Net Zero strategy could look like
Return to the hypothetical company with 100,000 tCO₂e of annual emissions.
Instead of simply announcing:
"We will achieve Net Zero by 2050,"
the company could develop a pathway such as:
By 2030, reduce absolute emissions by 30%.
By 2035, reduce them by 50%.
By 2040, achieve a 70% reduction.
By 2045, reach an 85–90% reduction.
Then address genuinely residual emissions through appropriate measures consistent with the company's Net Zero framework.
The exact numbers in this example are illustrative, not a recommended target for every company.
What matters is the structure.
The company has a baseline.
It has interim milestones.
It has identified interventions.
It has measurable indicators.
And each year, it can compare actual performance against its pathway.
That is the kind of journey the Net Zero Portal can help make more visible.
What this means for CBG developers and sustainability consultants
For companies working in CBG, biomethane, waste management, renewable energy and sustainability consulting, this development creates another potential area of demand.
A company announcing Net Zero may need help answering practical questions:
Where are our emissions coming from?
What is our baseline?
What is the emissions factor?
How much can we reduce through energy efficiency?
Could renewable electricity reduce Scope 2?
Could CBG replace fossil natural gas or another fuel?
What is the lifecycle emissions profile of the CBG?
What happens to methane emissions?
How should the project's emissions be monitored?
Can the project potentially qualify under an applicable carbon-credit methodology?
What documentation will be required?
How should progress be reported annually?
This means the future market may not be limited to building CBG plants.
There may also be a growing market around decarbonisation planning, emissions accounting, project MRV, carbon-market readiness and climate-data management.
The organisations capable of connecting these elements will be better positioned to support companies moving from climate commitments to implementation.
The biggest test will come after the announcement
The launch of the Net Zero Portal is significant, but the portal itself cannot decarbonise a factory.
It cannot replace an inefficient boiler.
It cannot capture methane from a waste stream.
It cannot install a solar plant.
It cannot redesign a supply chain.
And it cannot independently guarantee the accuracy of every number entered by an organisation.
Those actions still depend on companies, technology providers, financiers, consultants, auditors, project developers, regulators and other stakeholders.
The portal's value will therefore depend on what happens around it.
If companies use it simply to display ambitious target years, its impact will be limited.
If companies use it to establish baselines, publish meaningful progress, disclose methodologies and continuously improve their transition strategies, its value could be considerably greater.
The difference is between pledge-making and performance management.
From Net Zero promises to Net Zero evidence
This may ultimately be the most important change to watch.
Climate commitments are becoming increasingly common.
The next stage of India's transition will require better evidence.
Evidence of how much energy is being consumed.
Evidence of how much renewable energy is being used.
Evidence of how much fossil fuel has been displaced.
Evidence of how much methane has been captured.
Evidence of how much waste has been diverted.
Evidence of how emissions have changed.
And evidence that claimed reductions are based on transparent and defensible methodologies.
For a CBG project, that could mean detailed feedstock records, gas production measurements, methane monitoring, electricity consumption data, transport records, plant-efficiency information and appropriate verification.
For a manufacturing company, it could mean energy meters, fuel records, production data, renewable-energy certificates or contracts, process measurements and supply-chain information.
For a financial institution, it could mean measuring financed emissions and the carbon profile of its portfolio.
Different sectors will have different pathways.
But the principle is the same:
A Net Zero target becomes meaningful only when progress can be measured against a credible baseline.
A national platform for a more accountable climate conversation
India's Net Zero Portal does not make corporate Net Zero commitments mandatory.
It does something subtler.
It creates a common national platform where organisations can voluntarily register commitments, disclose emissions information, identify pathways and report progress. The government has positioned it as a tool to improve transparency and support credible long-term climate planning.
That may sound administrative.
But climate action increasingly depends on administrative details.
How emissions are counted.
How boundaries are defined.
How baselines are established.
How reductions are measured.
How progress is reported.
How claims are verified.
How projects are connected to broader climate strategies.
These are the details that determine whether a Net Zero strategy is merely a statement—or a measurable transition.
For India's CBG and biomethane sector, this creates an especially interesting opportunity.
Waste-to-energy projects can potentially contribute to multiple objectives at once: waste management, renewable fuel production, methane management, fossil-fuel displacement and, where the applicable rules and methodologies are satisfied, participation in carbon markets.
But none of those benefits should be assumed automatically.
They need to be demonstrated.
The real question is no longer whether a company has a Net Zero target
India does not need more Net Zero promises simply for the sake of having more promises.
It needs better measurement.
Better projects.
Better data.
Better MRV.
Better technology.
And better evidence connecting corporate climate claims with actual reductions.
The new Net Zero Portal cannot guarantee all of these things.
But it can make corporate commitments easier to see.
And as those commitments become more visible, the questions surrounding them can become more precise:
What is the baseline?
What has actually been reduced?
How was it measured?
What technology delivered the reduction?
What remains?
What happens next?
That is where India's Net Zero journey becomes more than a collection of target years.
It becomes a question of performance.
And for businesses—from large industrial companies to emerging CBG and biomethane developers, that could be the more important transition now underway:
from announcing Net Zero to demonstrating it.
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