GS5047 VPA52 African Improved Cookstoves and Clean Water Programme: Ibanda – Makera Forest Cook Stove Project III

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Rwanda with VVB-confirmed additionality and a standard methodology, but undermined by a project-specific baseline, contradictory leakage justifications across documents, a false FPIC finding, and twelve material corrections flagged in the verification report. The absence of a stated buffer pool, ex-ante lifetime ERR figure, and CORSIA/CCP status leaves meaningful evidence gaps that limit confidence in the credit's robustness.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠FPIC was not conducted (stated as false in the verification report), a significant safeguard gap for a community cookstove deployment in Rwanda
• ⚠Leakage justification is contradictory: the PDD (2020) describes leakage as 'quantified' while the verification report (2022) states it was 'deemed negligible' with a 0% deduction
• ⚠Twelve material findings in the verification report required corrections to installation dates, crediting periods, usage-rate calculations, and baseline parameter definitions, indicating weak initial documentation quality
• ⚠The monitoring report (Nov 2023) reports 69,668 tCO2e while the verification report (Nov 2023) verifies only 58,350 tCO2e for the same period — an 18% discrepancy

Credit Vintages