Public Private Partnerships Build Urban Forests

On a winter afternoon, the air feels sharp and cold as one drives on the Yamuna expressway, which gives the impression of an endless concrete ribbon. Then, the landscape suddenly shifts — the concrete, metal, and glass skyline gives way to a lush green stretch.

Step in, and a different experience awaits. Outside, the city hums with speeding cars, honking bikes, and loud street vendors, and inside this pocket forest, peace blankets the air, punctuated by the soft rustle of leaves and birdsong. Here, two worlds coexist — the chaos of urban life and the serenity of nature.

Welcome to the PPP forest, a public-private project developed on public land, funded by a corporate house, and executed by a group of environmental enthusiasts.

By investing in these forests, companies are aiming to fulfil their corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments while making a long-term commitment to environment conservation. Urban forests are meant to work as green infrastructure that provides various environmental benefits, such as carbon sinks, natural air purifiers, and islands for heat reduction.

Urban forests are an element of nature-based solutions, says Nidhi Pundhir, Senior Vice President, Global CSR at technology firm HCLTech.

“Our vision for urban forests encompasses creating/restoring green urban spaces to improve air quality, combat pollution, and support biodiversity conservation in urban areas — all while enhancing community engagement in environmental protection,” says Pundhir, who is also the director of HCLFoundation, the CSR arm of HCLTech.

HCLFoundation claims to have helped create or restore 20+ urban forests covering nearly 200 acres of land in several states, including the 10-acre Harit Upvan Amarpur off Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.

Similarly, business conglomerate RPG Group has pledged to conserve, restore, and grow one million trees by 2030 across its operation areas in several states, including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal.

Radha Goenka, director of RPG Foundation, the CSR arm of RPG Group, says her organisation is currently developing “two urban forests in Mumbai — one is in the Malabar Hills and the other near Haji Ali. Besides, we have already developed a biodiversity park in Pune named Udaan that we continue to support.” The biodiversity park in Pune was featured in a 2023 report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), which highlights a growing trend of corporate interest in establishing biodiversity parks in urban areas.

“We are making a big push for urban forests because, in cities, open spaces and green cover are receding. So, whatever space we have, we need to generate maximum environmental benefit with them,” says Goenka.

The UNDP and MoEFCC report cites other examples, such as Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, a public sector company that has used Miyawaki’s method of urban afforestation to develop small forests in public spaces and parks across 13 cities in India.

India is urbanising rapidly. By 2036, its towns and cities will be home to 600 million people, or 40% of the population, up from 31% in 2011, with urban areas contributing almost 70% to GDP, according to a post on the World Bank website.

While urbanisation may be a sign of economic growth, it comes with an environmental cost. Cities are a key contributor to climate change, as urban activities are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Estimates suggest that urban areas are responsible for 70% of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings among the most significant contributors, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Why are corporates doing it? 

Corporates across sectors are increasingly transforming dumping yards, barren parks, and dusty highway shoulders into limited forests as a nature-based urban solution to the receding green cover.

“As urbanisation continues, maintaining a balance between development and the preservation of green spaces becomes crucial for sustainable urban growth,” says Neeraj Nanda, President of KEC International, an RPG Group company that focuses on engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) space.

Businesses operate within ecological boundaries, and their long-term viability is intrinsically linked to the environment — clean air, water, and biodiversity, added Pundhir of HCLFoundation.

As the effects of climate change become more evident in cities, the role of greenspaces in enhancing urban resilience is key. What is fuelling the growth of these limited forests are factors like growing environmental consciousness, organisations’ attempt to align their corporate vision with sustainability, and a way to comply with CSR and ESG regulatory norms.

The mandatory provisions of CSR under section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 became effective from April 2014. This made it mandatory for companies to spend 2% of their average net profit for the past three years on CSR activities.

According to the latest government data, in the year 2022-23, Indian companies spent nearly Rs. 19.6 billion on environment and sustainability caused from the CSR corpus. This was Rs. 7.74 billion in 2014-15. Environment Sustainability is one of the top five sectors to garner CSR attention in 2022-23.

A collaborative approach 

“Developing forests and green spaces in urban areas in a collaborative model is a sustainable solution for preserving the environment. As part of their CSR initiative, a number of corporates are volunteering to support greening efforts,” says Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Member, Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region (NCR) and adjoining areas.

“Developing urban forests in urban areas is a resource-intensive affair, but a collaborative and participatory approach allows pooling in of resources,” explained Bajpayee, adding that such an approach is imminent for the success of any such project.

The land, labour, upkeep and the process to grow such forests are all expensive in an urban setup where the resource is scarce Nitin Nath, North India lead at environment organisation Say Trees, an organisation working with several corporate houses to develop or redevelop urban forests, says all available urban lands may also not be fertile or conducive to growing trees due to several reasons, including acidity or alkalinity of the soil. These land parcels need to be first prepared for growing forests.

Urban forests are also getting the attention of the government. The Nagar Van Yojana (NVY) is a Central Government initiative to create forests/green spaces in urban and peri-urban areas. It is implemented through the State/UT Forest Departments and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). National Afforestation and Eco-development Board is implementing the Nagar Van Yojana (NVY), which envisages developing 600 Nagar Vans and 400 Nagar Vatikas in the country from 2020-21 to 2026-27.

Environment conservation is a collective responsibility and involving all stakeholders inculcates a sense of shared duty, which ensures consistent care for these limited forests, so they do not get neglected over time, says Sanzwal Kak Kapoor, co-founder of environmental organisation I Am Gurgaon that restored the Aravali Biodiversity Park (ABDP) in Gurugram.

The ecological restoration and conservation of ABDP was completed in collaboration with the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and “70 corporates” contributing corpus for it, says Kapoor.

While urban forests bring direct ecological benefits, they also bring mental and physical health benefits to people.

“Green patches in urban areas enhance mental and physical health and provide spaces for exercise, relaxation, and community interaction,” says artist Gopal Namjoshi, who regularly visits the ABDP in Gurugram.

Celebrating his hope for a greener Gurugram, Namjoshi sculpted an 2.5 metre tall Indian eagle-owl (Bubo bengalensis) from metal scraps. Indian eagle-owls were missing from the locality but started revisiting ABDP after its restoration.

Benefits of urban forests

Well-managed urban forests can offer benefits. They can sequester carbon and produce oxygen, curb air pollution, noise pollution, stormwater runoff, and heat island effects. They also help in creating an oasis effect and maintain biodiversity.

“Every available pocket of land is good for developing an urban forest. However, a neglected or unkept piece of land that has old and fully grown trees should be conserved first because the ecosystem will take less time to build. The Nest, an urban forest in Mumbai, for instance, is under two acres, a very small piece of land, but it already had big trees, so the ecosystem started thriving faster. With barren land, like in the case of Udaan — one has to be more patient,” says Goenka of the RPG Foundation.

“We also need to create stepping stone habitats, so if a bird flies out of the park, it should have a place to land to build a new ecosystem. And if we connect the whole city with stepping stone habitats with lots of mini urban forests, then environmental benefits generated within the forest can extend across the entire city.”

Need for diverse plantation

While urban forests are being seen as a key contribution to a city’s environment, some argue that these spaces often use monoculture planting to expand the green cover faster. The practice can weaken ecosystem resilience by harming biodiversity and increasing susceptibility to pests and diseases. They emphasise the need for diverse, native species to create healthier, more sustainable urban forests.

“An urban forest is a net positive. At times, monoculture planting is adopted to increase the green cover faster. Monoculture plantations require less care, and its survival rate is better. But they should always be avoided. Native species and local needs must be kept in mind while developing such city forests,” says Sankar Prasad Pani, an environmental lawyer based in Odisha.

“Diverse plantation attracts birds and pollinators — different layers of tree growth help them thrive, which may be missing in monoculture and ornamental plantations,” says Pani, adding that his home city of Bhubaneswar too has grown urban forests.

Both Nath and Kapoor claimed that while conducting their urban forest projects, they have preferred plantations of mixed native species.

“We clearly emphasise planting native species. But all monocultures may not be bad. In some cases, like along the roads, planting of any single native species also helps the cause of beautification without adversely impacting the local biodiversity,” says Bajpayee.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay-India. Read the original article here)