GS11935 GS11934 RVPA-28 Promoting sustainable use of biomass energy resources in targeted communities

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Nepal with VVB-confirmed additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but undermined by a 2010-dated project-specific baseline, an aggressive 100% usage-rate assumption, no buffer pool, and a contradiction on whether FPIC was conducted. The low extraction confidence and multiple inter-document discrepancies (fNRB units, crediting period, usage rate) reduce confidence in the underlying data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 100% in the validation report versus 1 in an appendix — a factor-of-100 discrepancy that, if the lower value is correct, would reduce the ERR by two orders of magnitude
• ⚠fNRB value appears as 91.44 in the validation report but 0.9144 in the PDD — a factor-of-10 unit discrepancy that could inflate or deflate the ERR by an order of magnitude
• ⚠FPIC status contradicts itself: the 2023 validation report states FPIC was conducted, while the 2024 validation report states it was not
• ⚠Baseline survey dates from 2010, flagged by the CME as potentially irrelevant for current firewood consumption patterns, yet no updated baseline was provided
• ⚠No buffer pool or permanence mechanism is documented, and reversal events are explicitly not addressed

Credit Vintages