AWMS Methane Recovery Project MX06-S-34, Coahuila and Durango, México

Audit Analysis

A CDM methane-recovery project from Mexican livestock corrals with a VVB-confirmed barrier additionality test, but undermined by ten material findings (including a baseline calculation error that over-counted cow population), a contradictory leakage treatment between the validation and monitoring reports, and the absence of any buffer-pool or permanence data. The project delivered only about 36% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, which is conservative but raises questions about baseline accuracy.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Ten material findings in the validation report, including a baseline error that included all population stages instead of only lactating cows, wrong corral count (5 claimed vs 4 on site), and missing CO2 emissions from electricity use
• ⚠Leakage treatment is contradictory: the 2007 validation report deemed leakage negligible, but the 2011 monitoring report states leakage was not addressed at all
• ⚠No buffer-pool percentage, no reversal-event data, and no permanence mechanism documented for a methane-avoidance project
• ⚠Baseline is project-specific and modeled, with no documented reassessment date, and the initial calculation contained a population-stage error

Credit Vintages