Developing climate resilience of the coastal communities of Sundarbans through Mangrove Afforestation

Audit Analysis

This Sundarbans mangrove afforestation project is registered under VCS with a 14% buffer pool and VVB-confirmed additionality, but the validation report (January 2025) identifies 20 material findings and 25+ corrective actions, including that the baseline and additionality are not fully compliant with the Combined Tool, the AFOLU category is incorrect, and soil organic carbon emissions in this wetland are not de minimis. No monitoring data exists yet, leakage is unaddressed at 0%, and seven contradictions between documents undermine confidence in the record. The project carries significant methodological and over-crediting risk in its current state.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Soil organic carbon (SOC) pool emissions in this wetland project are explicitly stated as not de minimis, yet the 0% leakage deduction and project-specific baseline may not adequately account for soil carbon losses, creating a material over-crediting risk.
• ⚠The validation report's corrective actions state that the AFOLU project category is incorrect, the baseline identification is incomplete, and additionality has not been demonstrated in full compliance with the Combined Tool — fundamental methodological gaps for a registered project.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% with the justification recorded as 'not addressed' in the December 2024 validation report, despite the project being in a dynamic coastal mangrove ecosystem where displacement and edge effects are expected.
• ⚠Seven contradictions between the 2023 issuance document and the 2025 validation report (covering FPIC, safeguards, grievance mechanism, additionality verification, and leakage) indicate the project record was substantially revised, reducing confidence in the stability of the underlying claims.
• ⚠Minimum extraction confidence is rated 'low', meaning at least one key document was poorly readable, further weakening the evidentiary basis for scoring.

Credit Vintages

No issuances recorded on the registry.