Alsea River Forest Carbon Project

Audit Analysis

The Alsea River Forest Carbon Project is a US-based improved forest management project under ACR with a verified additionality test, a 16% buffer pool, and a strong 30% quantified leakage deduction. However, significant data contradictions between the PDD and validation/monitoring reports—particularly a tenfold discrepancy in the buffer pool percentage and a 19% gap in claimed ERR—combined with material findings that include ERR calculation errors, raise meaningful concerns about the reliability of the verified figures. The project delivered roughly 800% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation in just 22 months, a ratio that, while not impossible for a forest project in its early years, warrants scrutiny given the documented calculation corrections.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Buffer pool percentage contradicts between the monitoring report (16%) and the PDD (1.6%)—a tenfold difference that, if the lower figure were correct, would leave the project with minimal permanence protection
• ⚠Verified ERR of 40,949 tCO2e represents approximately 73% of the 56,096 tCO2e lifetime ex-ante estimate after only ~22 months of monitoring, and the material findings explicitly note that vintage ERR calculation errors were found and corrected in the ACR worksheet
• ⚠Claimed ERR differs by 19% between the PDD (34,396) and the validation report (40,949), indicating the figure was revised upward during verification
• ⚠FPIC is reported as not conducted in the validation report (the more recent and authoritative document), contradicting the PDD's claim that it was performed
• ⚠No grievance mechanism is documented, and benefit sharing is not described in the validation report despite being claimed in the PDD

Credit Vintages