Installation of high efficiency wood burning cookstoves in Malawi - Project 2

Integrity

The VVB confirmed additionality using an activity test and the VVB name is provided (verification/issuance documents), which supports basic additionality. However, there are numerous material findings targeting the accuracy of fuel-use parameters and the proportion of operational cookstoves, and multiple corrective-action requests require cross-checking raw monitoring data and sampling methods (issuance report, 2025-11-06). Baseline methodology is project-specific and baseline reassessment timing is not stated in available documents, which reduces confidence in baseline validity and permanence treatment.

Transparency

The project provides a named VVB (Carbon Check) and a clear monitoring period (2020-07-05 — 2023-02-28) and the reported claimed and verified emission reduction figure in the primary record are identical (144,965), supporting internal consistency in the cited issuance. However, evidence documents are listed as 'unknown' in the extracted record, min extraction confidence is medium, and important metadata (baseline reassessment date, grid EF year) are not found in the extracted record, lowering transparency.

Claim Safety

The project is reported as not CORSIA-eligible, reducing immediate dual-claim risk. The FNRB approach uses national defaults and an FNRB value of 0.91 is reported, which is transparent, but assumptions on usage rates are partially missing (usage_rate_assumed not stated) and the verification flagged accuracy issues in ERR calculations. Those findings raise over-crediting risk until corrective actions and data cross-checks are completed (issuance report findings and CARs).

Documentation

There is a large document set (n=60) and a recent issuance date (2025-11-06), but minimum extraction confidence is only medium and evidence_docs are recorded as unknown. Several CARs and many assessment findings were raised; some were closed but many require resolution. The VVB independence is clear (named), but missing baseline reassessment information and unresolved findings reduce the documentation score.

Overall

I privileged the values from the more recent documents (those with later dates in the contradictions list) because they likely reflect the final verification/issuance position: for example, I used the 144,965 ERR claimed/verified figure (document dated 2024-10-07) rather than the 1,100,453 figure dated 2024-10-05 because the later record aligns with the issuance report (2025-11-06). For usage rate the 0.871 value (2024-10-07) was chosen over 87.1 (likely a unit/reporting error on 2024-09-06). For procedural items (FPIC, safeguards, grievance mechanism, benefit sharing, reversal events, and usage monitoring method) I favored the later-document values (dated October 2024) which report FPIC conducted, safeguards mentioned, grievance mechanism present, reversal events none reported, and annual survey monitoring rather than earlier documents that reported these as absent or self-reporting. These contradictions reduce confidence and required downgrades to scores because they indicate inconsistent reporting across documents and unresolved issues flagged by the VVB. The medium extraction confidence and many outstanding assessment findings/CARs further reduce the overall score to a conservative mid-range rating.