GS2504 Voluntary Gold Standard Multi-country Improved Cookstove PoA-Flamingo Cookstove Project VPA5

Audit Analysis

The Flamingo Cookstove VPA5 project has a confirmed additionality assessment and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but is undermined by nine cross-document contradictions—including a 54% discrepancy in the fuel non-renewable biomass factor and a 30-percentage-point gap between assumed and verified usage rates. Four corrective action requests from the verification body and the absence of a buffer pool or explicit permanence treatment further weaken the project's integrity profile.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠FNRB value of 0.92 in the verification report (2023-03) contradicts 0.42 in the monitoring report (2023-09), a 54% discrepancy that materially affects credit quantities
• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 80% in the PDD versus 56.4% verified in the most recent monitoring report, indicating a 30-percentage-point over-estimation of cookstove utilisation
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 5% in the 2023 monitoring report versus 95% in the 2021 monitoring report—a 90-percentage-point swing that raises serious data-reliability concerns
• ⚠Four corrective action requests (CAR#01–CAR#04) were raised in the verification report, indicating unresolved compliance issues
• ⚠Reversal events are listed as 'not addressed' in the extracted record, and no buffer pool percentage is stated

Credit Vintages