GS1289: Native Hydraid BioSand Water Filter Programme East Africa: VPA (02) Ethiopia

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard water-filter project in Ethiopia displacing firewood, with VVB-confirmed additionality and no reversal events, but undermined by extensive data-quality issues: over 30 material findings, 17 corrective actions, and 9 cross-document contradictions including a 5.7× discrepancy in the lifetime ex-ante estimate between the PDD and the monitoring report. The verification process caught and corrected several substantive errors (CH₄ emission factor, Wb,y capping), but the volume of inconsistencies raises concerns about the reliability of the underlying monitoring data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Lifetime ex-ante estimate differs by a factor of ~5.7 between the PDD (95,235 tCO₂e) and the monitoring report (16,684 tCO₂e), creating ambiguity in the pro-rata delivery ratio
• ⚠CH₄ emission factor was corrected in both directions across reports (0.03→0.3 and 0.3→0.03), indicating unresolved uncertainty in a key parameter
• ⚠17 corrective actions remain open, including errors in the usage-rate calculation formula and discrepancies in emission-reduction values between the MR text and the ER spreadsheet
• ⚠FNRB method changed between verification reports from local field measurement to national default without clear justification
• ⚠Leakage justification is contradictory: the verification report states 'quantified' while the monitoring report states 'deemed negligible', yet the deduction is 0% in both

Credit Vintages