GS2397 - GS1265 - African Biomass Energy Conservation POA - Rwanda Biomass Conservation (2)

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard cookstove PoA in Rwanda has VVB-confirmed additionality and a quantified 29% leakage deduction, but is undermined by 14 material findings, 26 corrective actions, 11 cross-document contradictions, and a verified ERR figure that exceeds the lifetime ex-ante estimate. The absence of a stated buffer pool, a project-specific baseline last reassessed in 2013, and a 90.47% verified usage rate with no assumed baseline create meaningful over-crediting and permanence risks.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR (387,394 tCO₂e) exceeds the lifetime ex-ante estimate (329,223 tCO₂e), indicating over-crediting of approximately 18% above the full-project expectation
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, leaving permanence risk unmitigated for a cookstove project with inherent reversal risk
• ⚠14 material findings and 26 corrective actions span calculation errors, missing surveys, a breach of the small-scale VPA aggregate energy savings limit, and unresolved deviation requests
• ⚠FNRB value contradicts between 0.98 (verification report, 2022) and 0.81 (monitoring report, 2022), a 21% discrepancy that materially affects emission reduction claims
• ⚠Leakage deduction is inconsistent across documents: 29.07% in the 2022 verification report versus 10% in the 2020 monitoring report

Credit Vintages