Chorchaiwat Wastewater Treatment and Biogas Utilization Project

Audit Analysis

A long-running Thai wastewater biogas project (operating since 2007, now in its second 10-year crediting period) with VVB-confirmed additionality and no reversal events, but held back by a project-specific baseline, absence of a buffer pool, a 0% leakage deduction justified only as 'deemed negligible,' and a notable volume of corrective action requests and material findings across verification cycles. The 2025 verification report confirms ERR figures of 34,000 tCO₂e for the 2021–2023 monitoring period, with 2022 data conservatively excluded due to missing evidence.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Eight Corrective Action Requests and one Clarification Request were raised in the 2025 verification, covering IRR/NPV double-counting, gas flow unit errors (m³ vs Nm³), methodology version compliance, and baseline scenario issues — indicating recurring documentation and calculation weaknesses.
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, leaving permanence risk unmitigated despite the project's avoidance-type design.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% with a justification of 'deemed negligible' (2025 report), a shift from the earlier 'quantified' treatment in the 2021 verification, and no quantified leakage analysis is provided.
• ⚠The PDD dates from 2009 and the project-specific baseline was last reassessed in 2017; while the next VCS-mandated reassessment is not yet due (10-year interval from 2017), the baseline has not been updated in over seven years.
• ⚠Eleven contradictions were identified across documents, including shifts in FPIC status, grievance mechanism presence, safeguards documentation, and leakage justification between the 2017 and 2025 verification reports.

Credit Vintages Exhausted