Grouped Projects for Laos Improved Cookstove

Audit Analysis

The Laos Improved Cookstove project (VCS-2924) has VVB-confirmed additionality and standard safeguards in place, but is severely undermined by a major double-counting incident (136,292 cookstoves overlapping with Bridge Carbon and Iceberg projects), a 43.7% under-delivery against pro-rata expectations, a mid-verification methodology change, and over 60 corrective actions. Previous vintages required recalculation to remove 329,802 tCO2e of excess credits, indicating material over-crediting in earlier periods. The project remains registered and delivering credits, but the integrity and claim-safety profile is significantly weakened.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠136,292 cookstoves removed from emission reduction calculations due to overlap with Bridge Carbon and Iceberg projects; 329,802 tCO2e of excess ERs from previous vintages required adjustment
• ⚠Project boundary initially defined as the whole country rather than government-delineated areas, creating systemic double-counting risk with VCS-2521 and GS12796
• ⚠Methodology changed from VMR0006 v1.1 to VM0050 v1.0 during the verification process, raising questions about the validity of prior calculations
• ⚠Achieved reductions (354,926 tCO2e) are 43.73% lower than the pro-rata ex-ante expectation (~630,801 tCO2e) for the monitoring period, indicating significant over-estimation in the original PDD
• ⚠fNRB value contradicts between verification reports (0.47 in 2026 vs 0.6882 in 2024), suggesting prior credits may have been calculated with an incorrect emission factor

Credit Vintages