AGRISOLERO CARBON FARMING IN NORTHERN ITALY

Audit Analysis

The Agrisolero carbon farming project in Northern Italy is a registered VCS AFOLU soil-carbon project with a 25% buffer pool and VVB-confirmed additionality, but it carries a heavy burden of 18 material findings at validation, an open forward action on model validation, and a three-fold discrepancy in lifetime ERR between the PDD and the validation report. The absence of any verified monitoring data, combined with a 0% leakage deduction that the validation report itself flagged as insufficiently assessed, leaves significant uncertainty about the robustness of the credit claims.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠18 material findings at validation spanning additionality (CAP subsidies), baseline (N-fixing crops), leakage (biomass residue diversion), soil sampling design, monitoring plan, and non-permanence risk — 23 CARs were raised and closed, but the volume signals a weak initial project design.
• ⚠Lifetime ERR increased from 1,815 tCO2e in the 2022 PDD to 5,670.49 tCO2e in the 2026 validation report (a 3.1× increase) with no documented explanation for the change.
• ⚠A forward action request (FAR) remains open requiring independent expert validation of the SoilR-RothC model before the first verification phase — the core soil-carbon model has not yet been independently verified.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% (deemed negligible), yet the validation report itself lists 'insufficient assessment of project leakage from biomass residue diversion' as a material finding, and the leakage justification shifted from 'quantified' to 'deemed negligible' between two versions of the same report.
• ⚠The appendix (2026-02-27) reports reversal events, contradicting the main validation report (2026-02-26) which states none were reported.

Credit Vintages

No issuances recorded on the registry.