Novocarbo Rhine

Audit Analysis

Novocarbo Rhine is a German biochar removal project under the Puro.earth standard with a 1,000-year permanence claim and VVB-confirmed additionality, but the verification report identifies six material findings centred on an incomplete LCA that omits upstream wood-harvesting, chipping, and transport emissions. A severe internal contradiction in the verified ERR figures (176,869 vs 435 tCO₂e within the same report) and the absence of any leakage treatment or buffer pool raise substantial over-crediting and permanence concerns that are not yet resolved.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Six material findings in the verification report (2025-05-07) indicate the LCA omits wood harvesting, chipping, and transport emissions, meaning net removals may be materially overstated
• ⚠Internal contradiction in the same verification report: total ERR claimed/verified appears as both 176,869 and 435 (tCO₂e), a ~400× discrepancy with no unit clarification
• ⚠Leakage is explicitly not addressed and no deduction is applied, despite biochar production involving feedstock sourcing and transport where displacement is plausible
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated and no reversal-event data is available, leaving the 1,000-year permanence claim unbacked by a quantified safety margin
• ⚠Eight corrective actions remain open, including the need for an EBC Sink Certificate covering factory-gate-to-grave emissions and a Puro Earth written statement accepting the inferior moisture level used in calculations

Credit Vintages Exhausted