ITAA afforestation on degraded grasslands under extensive grazing

Audit Analysis

The ITAA afforestation project in Uruguay has a VVB-verified additionality assessment and a recently reassessed project-specific baseline, but is undermined by 20 non-conformity reports, an 85% reduction in project area, a 2019 thinning reversal event, and a 0% leakage deduction justified only as 'deemed negligible.' Multiple contradictions between the verification report, monitoring report, and PDD — particularly in ERR figures and the ex-ante lifetime estimate (66,061 vs. 545,216) — raise material over-crediting and data-reliability concerns.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Project area reduced by 85% (from 1,544 ha to 224.6 ha) due to property sales in 2018, invalidating the original PDD ex-ante estimate of 545,216 tCO2e against the current 66,061 tCO2e
• ⚠20 Non-Conformity Reports and 28 New Information Requests raised during verification, including an error in the long-term average calculation that led to overestimation of removals
• ⚠2019 thinning event produced a net CO2 source, requiring negative VCUs to be offset by discounting prior years — a reversal event that the verification report nonetheless labels as 'none reported'
• ⚠0% leakage deduction justified solely as 'deemed negligible' in the verification report, while an appendix describes the treatment as 'quantified' — an unresolved contradiction
• ⚠FPIC recorded as not conducted in the verification report but as conducted in an appendix; benefit sharing described in the PDD but not in the verification report

Credit Vintages