GS1729 Myanmar Stoves Campaign - Soneva in Myanmar - VPA No. 012

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard cookstove project in Myanmar has a verified additionality assessment and reasonable fNRB, but is undermined by an extensive list of calculation errors (10 CARs, 3 CLs), a 0% leakage deduction that contradicts the project's own monitoring report, no buffer pool, and a large gap between the assumed 100% usage rate and the verified 71.88%. The project over-delivers relative to its pro-rata ex-ante expectation, which is positive, but the volume of corrective actions and data contradictions significantly erode confidence in the underlying calculations.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Ten corrective action requests (CAR-1 through CAR-10) and three compliance-level findings (CL-1 through CL-3) in the November 2023 verification report, including errors in baseline calculations, net benefit computations, and survey precision — indicating systemic calculation weaknesses
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% in the verification report contradicts the 5% figure in the project's own monitoring report (November 2023), with the justification merely stated as 'quantified' without transparent methodology
• ⚠No buffer pool is established for a project with inherent permanence risk (stove breakage, household reversion to biomass), and no reversal events data is available
• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 100% in the ex-ante estimate but verified at only 71.88% in the monitoring report, a 28-point gap that inflates the ex-ante baseline
• ⚠The Greenway Prime stove was removed from the project due to non-compliance with methodology efficiency testing requirements, indicating at least one product failed to meet the claimed performance standard

Credit Vintages