Plant A Million Trees

Plant A Million Trees is an environmental restoration initiative run by the YTDS Foundation, headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra, and active across India. Since 2018 the organisation has focused on large-scale tree plantation, afforestation, biodiversity restoration, and long-term tree care — moving well beyond one-time plantation drives toward measurable, monitored ecological outcomes.

About Plant A Million Trees

Plant A Million Trees works with corporates, institutions, communities, and individual volunteers to develop sustainable green spaces across urban and semi-urban India. The initiative reports having planted over 150,000 trees to date, with a survival rate of approximately 97% — a figure that reflects its emphasis on aftercare rather than plantation counts alone. The organisation has built partnerships with 50+ corporates and mobilised 250+ active volunteers in its plantation, monitoring, and education programmes.

Native Plantation and Miyawaki Forests

A core part of the work is native-species tree plantation, including dense, fast-growing Miyawaki forest patches designed to restore biodiversity on small urban and peri-urban plots. By prioritising native species suited to local soil and climate, the initiative aims for plantations that establish quickly and require less long-term intervention than mixed or non-native alternatives.

Corporate CSR and Employee Volunteering

Plant A Million Trees runs structured CSR plantation programmes for corporate partners, covering site selection and preparation, plantation execution, geo-tagged documentation, ongoing maintenance, and impact reporting. Employee volunteering days are organised alongside these drives, giving corporate teams direct, hands-on involvement in the plantations their organisations sponsor. This end-to-end model is designed to give companies verifiable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes rather than one-off planting photographs.

Community and School Programmes

Beyond corporate partnerships, the initiative runs community volunteer drives open to individuals and groups, alongside school partnership programmes that introduce students to tree nursery care, plantation techniques, and ongoing environmental stewardship. The organisation also undertakes complementary environmental work including lake cleaning, plastic recycling drives, and hillside restoration projects in and around Pune.

Long-Term Monitoring and Documentation

A distinguishing feature of Plant A Million Trees’ approach is its focus on tree survival over time rather than plantation volume alone. Each plantation drive is geo-tagged and monitored, with maintenance and impact documentation built into the process — giving corporate and institutional partners a transparent, trackable record of the trees planted on their behalf and supporting measurable climate action and biodiversity outcomes.

Sustainability Focus

Plant A Million Trees directly addresses environment conservation through afforestation, biodiversity restoration, and habitat regeneration — core pillars of ecological sustainability. Its emphasis on native species, long-term survival tracking, and community/corporate collaboration over headline plantation numbers reflects a genuine, on-ground commitment to reversing green cover loss and supporting climate resilience in and around Pune and across India.

Businesses, institutions, and individuals looking to support or partner with genuine environmental restoration work can connect with Plant A Million Trees directly, or explore more verified sustainability-focused organisations on the Prakati Green Directory.

Why It Matters

India continues to face significant pressure on its forest and green cover from urbanisation, industrial expansion, and climate change. Organisations like Plant A Million Trees play a critical role in closing that gap — not simply by planting saplings, but by ensuring those saplings survive, mature, and contribute to real carbon sequestration and air quality improvement over the years that follow. Corporate partners gain credible, documented CSR outcomes; volunteers and communities gain hands-on environmental education; and the broader ecosystem gains restored native tree cover that supports local biodiversity for decades to come.