Most CSR teams spend more time evaluating a Rs 2 lakh IT vendor than a Rs 20 lakh plantation partner. The IT vendor can't produce a dead forest. The plantation partner can.
This checklist is designed for CSR managers, procurement officers, and sustainability leads who are evaluating tree plantation vendors for Section 135 compliance. Run through it before you sign. If a vendor can't answer these 12 questions with evidence — not promises — find another vendor.
1. CSR-1 registration and legal standing
Any organisation implementing CSR activities on behalf of a company must be registered with the MCA under Form CSR-1. This is non-negotiable — if the vendor isn't CSR-1 registered, your CSR spend doesn't count under Section 135.
What to ask:
"Can you share your CSR-1 registration certificate and PAN?" Also check: GST registration, incorporation documents, and any state-level forestry or nursery licences. A vendor without these is not a vendor — they're a volunteer group.
Red flag:
"We don't need CSR-1, we operate through a partner." This means you're paying a middleman who subcontracts to an unknown third party. You have no visibility into who's actually planting your trees.
2. Documented survival evidence
The single most important question: what survival rate have your past projects achieved, and can you prove it? Not a projection, not a target — an actual count from a past project at least 2 years after planting.
What to ask:
"Show me survival data from a project you implemented at least 24 months ago. How many trees were planted, how many survived, and how was the count conducted?" Ask for photographs, GPS coordinates, and the methodology used for the count. A physical count is acceptable for small sites; for anything over 1 acre, expect digital monitoring (drone or satellite imagery).
Red flag:
"We guarantee 95% survival." No one can guarantee this without evidence. If the number is high but the evidence is thin, it's a sales pitch. Ask for the data behind the claim — not the claim itself.
For reference: Miyawaki plantations with proper maintenance achieve 85-95% survival at 2 years. Conventional plantations typically achieve 50-60% at 2 years. Government-led drives can be as low as 30-45%. If the vendor's numbers are dramatically higher than these benchmarks without evidence, be sceptical. Gardenia's SPEC India case study documents 90%+ survival across 5.1 acres in Makarba, Gujarat.
3. Species methodology and native species commitment
The 2025 Green Credit Programme rules mandate native, locally-adapted species. Even outside the GCP, native species are essential for biodiversity outcomes and long-term survival. A vendor who plants eucalyptus, casuarina, or subabul is not doing ecological restoration — they're doing fast-growing cover for photo opportunities.
What to ask:
"Provide the species list for our proposed site, with scientific names, native range, and ecological function (canopy, understory, shrub, ground cover)." A competent vendor should be able to name 30-50+ species suited to your site's soil and climate. If they can only name 5-10 species, they're running a monoculture with a thin polyculture veneer.
Red flag:
"We use a standard mix that works everywhere." There is no standard mix. Species selection must be site-specific — soil type, rainfall, temperature, and local biodiversity determine what will survive. A vendor with one mix for all sites doesn't understand ecology.
4. Maintenance duration and gap replacement
Most plantation failures happen in Year 2, not Year 1. The vendor who plants and leaves is the vendor who fails. Maintenance — watering, weeding, mulching, and gap replacement — is what separates a forest from a line item. Gardenia's 5-step methodology builds 24 months of active maintenance into every engagement.
What to ask:
"How many years of maintenance are included in your fee? What does maintenance cover — watering, weeding, mulching, gap replacement, pest management? How many gap replacement cycles are included, and in which years?" For Miyawaki, expect 2-3 years of active maintenance. For GCP registration, maintenance and monitoring must extend through Year 5.
Red flag:
"Maintenance is extra — we just plant." A vendor who doesn't include maintenance in the contract is setting you up for failure and a separate maintenance invoice. Or worse, no maintenance at all, and 50% mortality by Year 2.
5. Digital monitoring capabilities
The GCP requires digital monitoring — remote sensing, drone surveys, GIS audit trails. Paper-based survival counts are no longer sufficient for Green Credit registration. Even outside the GCP, digital monitoring is what makes your BRSR Principle 6 data auditable under reasonable assurance.
What to ask:
"What monitoring technology do you use? Can you produce geotagged baseline data, periodic drone or satellite imagery, and canopy density measurements? How often do you monitor, and what format are the reports in?"
Red flag:
"We'll do a physical count once a year." A physical count is not auditable. It produces a number with no evidence trail. For BRSR reasonable assurance, your auditor needs to verify the data — and they can't verify a hand-written count on a clipboard.
6. Green Credit Programme registration experience
If you plan to register your plantation under the Green Credit Programme, your vendor needs to understand the 2025 rules — eligible land categories, the registration process on the MoEFCC portal, the plantation plan format, and the digital monitoring requirements. This is a specific regulatory skill, not a general forestry skill.
What to ask:
"Have you registered a plantation under the GCP? Can you walk me through the registration process — what documents are required, what's the timeline, and what are the common reasons for rejection?" If they can't answer fluently, they haven't done it. Read our GCP guide to understand what the process involves.
7. Cost transparency and breakdown
A vendor who gives you a single per-tree or per-acre number without a breakdown is hiding something. The cost of a plantation has distinct components — site assessment, soil preparation, saplings, irrigation, planting, maintenance, monitoring — and each should be itemised.
What to ask:
"Provide a line-item cost breakdown for a 1-acre plantation over 5 years: site assessment, soil preparation, saplings, irrigation, planting labour, maintenance (Years 1-5), monitoring, and reporting." Compare the breakdown across vendors — if one is dramatically cheaper, find out which line item they're cutting. It's usually maintenance.
Red flag:
"Rs 50 per tree, all-inclusive." This pricing model incentivises the vendor to plant cheap, fast-growing species and skip maintenance. The cheaper the per-tree price, the more trees they plant, and the less they maintain. You're buying a tree count, not a forest.
8. References from previous CSR clients
Past performance is the best predictor of future results. A vendor with a track record of CSR implementations should be able to put you in touch with at least 2-3 previous clients.
What to ask:
"Can you share contact details for 3 previous CSR clients? We'd like to ask about their experience — survival rates, documentation quality, responsiveness, and whether they'd work with you again." When you call the references, ask: "Did the vendor deliver what they promised? What was the survival rate? Were there any surprises — cost overruns, delays, species substitutions?"
Red flag:
"Our clients prefer confidentiality." While some companies do restrict reference sharing, a vendor with zero references is a vendor with no track record. At minimum, ask for project names, locations, and outcomes — even without client contact details.
9. BRSR and regulatory compliance documentation
If your company files BRSR, your plantation data must be reportable under Principle 6. The BRSR Core framework (FY 2026-27) requires reasonable assurance — meaning your data must be auditable. Your vendor should produce documentation that maps directly to BRSR indicators, not a generic "certificate of plantation."
What to ask:
"Can you produce BRSR-aligned reporting? Show me a sample monitoring report from a past project — does it include species counts, survival data, canopy density, and geotagged evidence?" If the sample report is a one-page certificate with a tree count, the vendor doesn't understand BRSR. Read our CSR decision framework for more on regulatory alignment.
10. Geographic reach and local presence
A vendor who claims to operate across all of India but has no team within 200 km of your site will struggle with maintenance and monitoring. Trees don't wait for a site visit from Delhi.
What to ask:
"Where is your team based? How close is your nearest field team to our proposed site? How often can you visit the site for maintenance and monitoring?" A vendor with a local team — or a partner network with local teams — will deliver better maintenance than a vendor who flies in for planting and returns for an annual count.
11. Community engagement and land access
For rural sites, community buy-in is the difference between a plantation that survives and one that's grazed, burned, or encroached. A vendor who ignores the local community is setting up your plantation for failure.
What to ask:
"How do you engage the local community? Do you hire local labour for planting and maintenance? Is there a benefit-sharing arrangement — fodder, fuelwood, fruit? How do you handle grazing pressure?" A vendor who hires locally and builds community stewardship into the project will outperform one who brings in outside labour and leaves.
12. Inspection-ready documentation
At any point during the 5-year project, your CSR board, your auditor, or a government inspector should be able to visit the site and match it to the documentation. If the vendor's records don't match the ground, you have a compliance problem.
What to ask:
"If our auditor visits the site tomorrow, can you produce: geotagged plantation boundaries, per-tree or per-plot GPS coordinates, baseline species list, quarterly survival data, and photographic evidence?" If the answer is "we have a report," but not the underlying data, the documentation is not inspection-ready.
Inspection-ready documentation means: geotagged boundaries, species-level tracking, survival counts with photographic evidence, canopy density measurements, and annual monitoring reports structured for BRSR Principle 6 disclosure. If your vendor can't produce this on demand, you have two problems: you won't earn Green Credits, and your BRSR environmental disclosures won't withstand reasonable assurance review.
Using the checklist
Score each vendor on the 12 points. A vendor who scores well on 10+ is a serious implementation partner. A vendor who scores 6-8 is a contractor who may deliver with the right oversight. A vendor who scores below 6 is a risk to your CSR budget and your company's compliance record.
The most critical points are 2 (survival evidence), 4 (maintenance), 5 (monitoring), and 12 (inspection-ready documentation). If a vendor fails on any of these four, the other eight don't matter — the plantation will not produce the outcomes your CSR board needs.
If you'd like help evaluating a vendor — or if you'd like to see how Gardenia scores against this checklist — get in touch. We'll walk you through our documentation, survival data, and monitoring methodology. You can also review our partnership models for CSR deployment.
Download the printable checklist
Get the 12-point checklist as a PDF you can print, share with your procurement team, and score vendors against.
Evaluating plantation vendors for your CSR programme?
We'll walk you through our survival data, species methodology, monitoring infrastructure, and GCP registration process — so you can compare against your other vendors.
Request a ProposalFrequently asked questions
What should a CSR team ask a tree plantation vendor before signing a contract?
Ask for documented survival rates from past projects (not projections), species lists with scientific names, monitoring methodology (digital vs paper-based), GCP registration experience, maintenance duration commitment, cost breakdown, and references from previous CSR clients. The 12-point checklist in this article covers each criterion in detail.
How long should a CSR tree plantation maintenance contract last?
Minimum 3 years for conventional plantation and 5 years for Green Credit Programme registration. Miyawaki plantations typically need 2-3 years of active maintenance (watering, weeding, gap replacement) before the canopy closes enough to function without intervention, but monitoring should continue through Year 5 for GCP compliance and BRSR reporting.
What survival rate should a CSR tree plantation partner guarantee?
Look for partners who can document 85%+ survival at 2 years and 80%+ at 5 years for Miyawaki plantations. Conventional plantations typically achieve 50-60% at 2 years. Be wary of partners who promise 95%+ without evidence — ask for the data behind the claim.
Does a CSR tree plantation partner need to be registered with any government body?
The partner should have a CSR-1 registration with MCA if they are an implementing agency. For Green Credit Programme registration, the partner handles the MoEFCC GCP portal submission on behalf of the client. The partner should also have relevant state-level nursery or forestry registrations where applicable.