GS1729 Myanmar Stoves Campaign - Soneva in Myanmar - VPA No. 015 by Soneva Foundation

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Myanmar with a named VVB (SustainCERT) and an investment additionality test, but undermined by a direct contradiction on whether the VVB actually verified additionality, a 0% leakage deduction that conflicts with a 5% figure in the monitoring report, and 18 open corrective actions. The project delivered roughly 50% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, and FPIC was not conducted. Overall a moderate-quality project with meaningful data-reliability concerns.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Additionality verification is directly contradicted: the validation report (Apr 2023) states the VVB confirmed the investment test, while the verification report (Sep 2023) records it as not verified — the more recent verification report is privileged, leaving additionality unconfirmed.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% in the verification report but 5% in the 2022 monitoring report; the 'quantified' justification does not reconcile the two figures.
• ⚠18 corrective actions remain open, including unresolved disputes over the non-CO2 emission factor (EFb,non-CO2) raised as a FAR, sampling-design deficiencies, and missing ODA declaration.
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted for a community-level cookstove distribution project in Myanmar.
• ⚠Usage rate was assumed at 100% in the ex-ante estimate but verified at only 85.45%, a 15-percentage-point gap that directly inflates the ex-ante baseline.

Credit Vintages