Myanmar Stoves Campaign - Soneva in Myanmar - VPA No. 019

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Myanmar with VVB-verified additionality and documented safeguards, but undermined by a material finding that the VPA019 survey could not be conducted due to the military coup and proxy data from VPA018 was used instead. The absence of a stated buffer pool, unaddressed reversal risk, and a contradiction between the verification report (0% leakage) and the monitoring report (5% leakage) create meaningful integrity and claim-safety concerns. The project delivered roughly 66% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, which is conservative but reflects the data-quality issues.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Material finding in the verification report: the VPA019 survey was not possible due to the military coup, and results from VPA018 were used with a Gold Standard deviation approval — the verification rests on proxy data from a different project.
• ⚠Leakage deduction contradiction: the verification report (Nov 2023) states 0% while the monitoring report (Jan 2024) states 5%; the higher, more recent figure is not reflected in the VVB's assessment.
• ⚠Buffer pool percentage is not stated in any available document and reversal events are explicitly marked as not addressed, leaving permanence risk for a finite-lifetime cookstove unquantified.
• ⚠Total verified ERR is not found in the extracted record, so the VVB's independent confirmation of the 9,278 tCO₂e claim cannot be confirmed.

Credit Vintages