Lock Haven Improved Forest Management Project
#70of 137 in Soil carbon#125of 265 in United States#853of 1233 in Verra (VCS)#4of 5 in VM0003
Audit Analysis
The Lock Haven Improved Forest Management Project is a long-running VCS ALM project with a 100-year crediting period, a 12% buffer pool, and a 25% quantified leakage deduction, but the 2025 verification report carries 20 material findings and 20 corrective actions, including an incorrectly quantified non-permanence risk rating, a stratum that initially failed its paired t-test, and a missing ERR calculations spreadsheet. The project's protective mechanisms (buffer pool, leakage deduction, no reversal events) partially offset these quantification and documentation weaknesses, but the volume and severity of the findings materially undermine confidence in the carbon accounting.
Red Flags
- The 2025 verification report lists 20 material findings, including the non-permanence risk rating being 'incorrectly quantified and verified,' Stratum 2 initially failing its paired t-test before passing on re-inventory, and a missing ERR calculations spreadsheet — collectively undermining confidence in the quantification framework.
- The verification report (April 2025) and the monitoring report (March 2025) disagree on the verified ERR figure for the same period: 15,282 versus 12,989, a gap of roughly 15% that is unexplained in the extracted record.
- The 10-year baseline reassessment was due in October 2023 (project start 2013) but no reassessment date is recorded in any available document, meaning the project-specific baseline may be operating on outdated assumptions.
- The additionality test type shifted from an investment test (2014 validation report) to a common-practice test (2020 verification report), a methodological change that was not flagged as a contradiction in the project's own documentation.
- QA/QC procedures described in earlier reports (checking heights on every tenth plot) were not conducted in follow-up inventories, and treelist inconsistencies regarding harvested and dead trees were identified and corrected only after the fact.
Credit Vintages
| Issued | Retired | Available | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 14,854 | 14,854 | 0 | |
| 2014 | 9,274 | 9,274 | 0 | |
| 2015 | 11,373 | 11,373 | 0 | |
| 2017 | 15,027 | 15,027 | 0 | |
| 2018 | 16,109 | 16,109 | 0 | |
| 2019 | 1,047 | 1,047 | 0 | |
| 2020 | 14,587 | 14,587 | 0 | |
| 2021 | 2,918 | 0 | 2,918 | |
| 2022 | 10,071 | 0 | 10,071 | |
| Total | 95,260 | 82,271 | 12,989 |
Risk Indicators
VVB-confirmed but test type shifted from investment to commo
12% buffer pool, no reversals, but risk rating was miscalcul
25% quantified deduction, substantially conservative
Project-specific baseline; 10-year reassessment overdue sinc
FPIC and grievance mechanism confirmed, but not all stakehol
Not CORSIA-eligible; CCP status not mentioned
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