Anew - Burnt Mountain Forestry Project

Audit Analysis

The Burnt Mountain Forestry Project has a verified additionality test and a 40% quantified leakage deduction, but the verification report (September 2024) identified 17 material findings including multiple non-conformities, a draft (unsigned) monitoring report, and a buffer pool applied at 16% instead of the required 18%. These data-quality and compliance issues, combined with a project-specific baseline and unresolved contradictions in leakage figures, significantly undermine confidence in the integrity and accuracy of the claimed credits.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The monitoring report submitted for verification was a draft and had not been signed (OBS 4, verification report 2024-09-10), meaning the underlying data had not been formally approved by the project operator.
• ⚠Buffer pool contribution was applied at 16% instead of the 18% required by the methodology (NCR 9), meaning credits were issued with an insufficient reversal-risk buffer.
• ⚠A 100-fold discrepancy in the leakage deduction (40% in the June 2024 monitoring report vs. 0.4% in an undated document) raises serious questions about which figure was actually used in credit calculations.
• ⚠Multiple calculation errors were identified, including incorrect uncertainty values (NCR 7), wrong cell references for future-year GHG reductions (NCR 11), and inconsistent carbon values between the GHG Plan, Monitoring Report, and workbooks (NCR 16).
• ⚠Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) was not conducted, and no grievance mechanism or benefit-sharing arrangement is documented, despite the project being on private forestland in Vermont.

Credit Vintages