GS12215 VPA-1 Improved cookstoves and healthy lives in Nepal

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard cookstove project in Nepal has VVB-verified additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but is undermined by eight material findings—including a 17.37% variance exceeding the materiality threshold, baseline stoves still in use alongside project stoves, and a 15.6-percentage-point gap between assumed (90%) and verified (75.41%) usage rates. The project delivered approximately 89% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the first monitoring period, which is slightly conservative but within a reasonable range. Several corrective actions remain open, and permanence and reversal risk are not adequately addressed in the available documentation.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠17.37% variance between initial and final ER estimates exceeded the 10% materiality threshold, attributed to undisclosed baseline stove usage (verification report, Dec 2025)
• ⚠Baseline stoves observed in use alongside project stoves in several sampled households, directly challenging the additionality claim (verification report)
• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 90% in the ex-ante estimate but verified at only 75.41%, a 15.6-percentage-point gap that inflates the original credit estimate (monitoring report vs. PDD)
• ⚠Reversal events are not addressed and no buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, leaving permanence risk unquantified
• ⚠FAR #02 requires the project developer to establish a procedure to avoid double counting of VPAs across registries, indicating an unresolved double-claiming risk

Credit Vintages Exhausted