Cambodia National Biodigester Programme

Audit Analysis

This is a certified Gold Standard biogas project with VVB-confirmed additionality and a recent verification report, but several material issues reduce confidence. Leakage is not well justified, reversal handling is not addressed, and the record contains multiple contradictions across documents, including usage rate, grievance mechanism, leakage treatment, and credited volume.

Project Description

In rural areas of Cambodia, more than 90% of the people depend on traditional sources of fuel for cooking. Especially women and children are exposed to harmful fumes in their kitchens when cooking with fuel wood. The average energy costs and time to collect these fuels are a substantial burden for women and children. Their farming practices are mostly based on an integrated system combining crop production and animal husbandry. Biogas has the potential to provide an improved livelihood for rural households.  Biogas has significant potential as a technology to enable energy access, improve the economic returns to smallholder farming, address climate change, and mitigate health concerns. The sale of Gold Standard carbon credits enables the National Biodigester Programme to continue replacing traditional cooking devices using fossil fuels or non-renewable biomass with biogas stoves, improve animal waste management, and produce organic fertiliser for soil quality improvement at the household level. Project impacts and benefits: •    123,357 direct beneficiaries with access to clean energy, including clean cooking •    $250 USD savings in expenditures on cooking fuels and fertiliser per household per year •    76,779 tCO2 reduced per year •    Bioslurry, produced as a by-product from the biodigester, is used as a fertiliser,  increasing smallholder farmers' productivity and supplementing household incomes.  More information on this project is available in the   Gold Standard Impact Registry. N.B.  Individual vintages cannot be selected for purchase. Purchases will include credits from the vintage range stated.

Red Flags

• ⚠ Leakage is set at 0% in the verification record, but the justification is marked as not addressed and an earlier document reportedly used a 0.4% deduction.
• ⚠ The project has five material findings/corrective actions in the verification report, and reversal events are not addressed.
• ⚠ There are contradictions on usage rate, grievance mechanism, benefit-sharing/FPIC, FNRB, and credited emissions, which weakens reliability.

Credit Vintages

Cosa migliorerebbe questo punteggio

• Provide a clear, quantified leakage assessment and reconcile the 0% deduction with the earlier 0.4% figure.
• Publish a clean cross-document reconciliation for usage rate, grievance mechanism, FNRB, credited emissions, and corrective actions, with the latest verification evidence clearly linked.

Questi suggerimenti indicano quali prove pubbliche aggiuntive potrebbero migliorare il livello di confidenza di questa valutazione. Non garantiscono un punteggio futuro più alto.