Cleaner Cooking for Rural Zimbabwe

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove avoidance project in Zimbabwe with a solid combined additionality test verified by an independent VVB, but weakened by a 0% leakage deduction justified only as 'deemed negligible,' a project-specific baseline with no recorded reassessment, and a high volume of inter-document contradictions (12 identified) that raise data-reliability concerns. The verified ERR is approximately 94% of the claimed figure for the monitoring period, indicating modest conservatism, while the downward correction of the fNRB from 0.89 to 0.79 is a positive signal.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠0% leakage deduction justified solely as 'deemed negligible' in a cookstove project where household reversion to traditional cooking is a well-documented risk; no quantified leakage assessment found in any document
• ⚠12 contradictions across the verification report, monitoring report, PDD, and appendix — including a usage-rate discrepancy of 90% vs 77% and a claimed-ERR gap of 1,089,102 vs 334,563 — indicating significant data-quality and internal-consistency issues
• ⚠Project-specific baseline with no recorded reassessment date; the PDD crediting period (2020–2040) differs materially from the current VPA crediting periods (2021–2026 and 2023–2028), and the baseline has not been independently re-validated since project inception

Credit Vintages