GS7591 VPA 47 Malawi Improved Cookstove Project

Audit Analysis

The Malawi improved cookstove project has a verified additionality assessment and no reversal events, but is undermined by an extensive list of material findings and corrective actions, a significant drop in verified usage rate (from 90% to 62%), a 0% leakage deduction with contradictory justifications across documents, and multiple unresolved data discrepancies. The project delivered roughly 94% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the elapsed crediting period, but the volume of clarifications and corrective actions raises serious questions about the robustness of the underlying MRV data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Stove usage rate dropped from 90% (2021) to 62% (2022) per the monitoring report, yet the ex-ante assumption was 80% — a 18-percentage-point gap that directly inflates claimed reductions
• ⚠21 corrective actions and 20+ material findings across the verification and validation reports, including missing 2021 monitoring survey, calculation errors in PTDs, and inconsistent fNRB values (0.86 vs 0.97)
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% is justified as 'quantified' in the verification report but 'deemed negligible' in the monitoring report — contradictory rationales for the same zero deduction
• ⚠Claimed and verified ERR figures are identical (71,161 tCO2e), offering no independent verification signal and raising the question of whether the VVB independently recalculated the figure
• ⚠FPIC status is contradictory: the 2023 validation report records it as not conducted, while the 2025 validation report records it as conducted — the more recent document is privileged but the gap is unexplained

Credit Vintages