GS11935 GS11934 RVPA-40 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 severe discrepancy between the PDD ex-ante estimate (9,466 tCO₂e) and the verified figure (45,437 tCO₂e), a 100-fold contradiction in the usage rate across documents, and the absence of FPIC per the most recent validation report. The project's data reliability is significantly compromised by multiple cross-document inconsistencies.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR of 45,437 tCO₂e for the 2024 monitoring period is approximately 24× the pro-rata expectation derived from the PDD ex-ante estimate of 9,466 tCO₂e over the 5-year crediting period, raising serious over-crediting concerns
• ⚠Usage rate is stated as 100% in both the validation and verification reports but as 1 in the monitoring report — a 100-fold discrepancy that, if the lower value is correct, would mean credits are overstated by two orders of magnitude
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted according to the more recent validation report (2024-09-27), contradicting an earlier validation report (2023-11-30) that recorded it as conducted — a critical safeguard gap for a community-targeted project
• ⚠The monitoring report is dated 2024-03-31, which falls within the stated monitoring period (2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31) and before the validation report date (2024-09-27), indicating a chronologically implausible document sequence

Credit Vintages