Dona Juana landfill gas-to-energy project

Audit Analysis

The Doña Juana landfill gas-to-energy project has a confirmed investment-test additionality and a VVB-verified baseline, but is undermined by a 45% grid emission factor discrepancy between the PDD and monitoring report, 13 material findings with 17 corrective actions, and a complete absence of safeguards documentation in the monitoring phase. The project's data reliability is further weakened by the lack of a verified ERR figure and contradictory leakage treatment across documents.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Grid emission factor differs by 45% between the PDD (0.4972, Dec 2018) and the monitoring report (0.2745, Nov 2020), raising serious over-crediting risk if the higher value was used in earlier credit issuances
• ⚠13 material findings and 17 corrective actions identified during validation/verification, including incorrect baseline calculation (RCP tool not applied), flawed grid EF methodology, and inadequate monitoring QA/QC for gas analyzers and flare operation
• ⚠Safeguards are mentioned in the validation report (Mar 2017) but entirely absent from the monitoring report (Nov 2017); FPIC was not conducted and no grievance mechanism is in place
• ⚠Total verified ERR is not available in the extracted record, preventing independent confirmation of claimed credits (793,840 tCO₂e)
• ⚠Leakage treatment is contradictory: the validation report (2017) states leakage was not addressed, while the monitoring report (2020) claims it was quantified, yet the deduction remains 0%

Credit Vintages