M’tetezi Improved cook-stoves Balaka District, Malawi

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard improved-cookstove project in Malawi has a reasonable leakage treatment (5% quantified deduction) and no reversal events, but suffers from significant documentation gaps (12 corrective actions), an unconfirmed additionality status in the verification report, a project-specific baseline with no stated reassessment, and a major discrepancy between two monitoring reports on verified emissions reductions. The absence of a buffer pool and the unresolved ERR contradiction raise meaningful over-crediting risk.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR of 365,043 tCO2e (2023 monitoring report) contradicts claimed ERR of 232,273 tCO2e (2025 monitoring report) — a 57% discrepancy with no reconciliation provided
• ⚠Additionality was not confirmed by the VVB in the verification report, despite the validation report stating it was; the corrective actions note the project is auto-additional as an LDC but this was never formally verified
• ⚠Twelve corrective actions were required by the VVB, indicating substantial gaps in the project documentation and methodology application
• ⚠FNRB methodology is contradicted between the verification report (local field measurement) and the 2025 monitoring report (national default), undermining confidence in the 0.91 value

Credit Vintages