Anew - Blue Ridge Escarpment Forestry Project

Audit Analysis

The Blue Ridge Escarpment Forestry Project is a 20-year IFM project in South Carolina with verified additionality, a conservative 40% leakage deduction, and an 18% buffer pool, but the verification report identified eight material findings—including baseline silviculture modeling errors, a shapefile projection error that overestimated acreage, and a discrepancy between the monitoring report and the ERT workbook—that collectively raise concerns about the robustness of the underlying MRV data. The project-specific baseline, absence of FPIC, and lack of a stated grievance mechanism further limit confidence in the integrity and safeguards framework.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The verification report (2023) identified a shapefile projection error (UTM Zone 16 instead of 17) that caused acreage overestimation, meaning the project boundary area was initially misstated.
• ⚠Baseline regeneration modeling initially implied conversion of hardwoods to softwoods, contrary to the IFM methodology, and FVS simulation errors produced incorrect regeneration planting amounts—both corrected only after VVB review.
• ⚠A discrepancy between the monitoring report and the ERT workbook values for net GHG emission reductions was flagged as a non-conformity, indicating internal data-quality issues.
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted and no grievance mechanism is documented, despite safeguards being mentioned in the project documents.
• ⚠The PDD (2023-06-30) lists reversal events as 'not addressed' while the validation report (2022-05-18) states 'none reported'—an inconsistency in how permanence risk is documented across project documents.

Credit Vintages