Quebec Forestry Sector Carbon Sequestration Grouped Project Pivot

Audit Analysis

A VCS soil-carbon project in Quebec with VVB-verified additionality and a 10% buffer pool, but undermined by a project-specific baseline, significant under-delivery relative to the pro-rata expectation (~11.5%), and multiple contradictions across documents on leakage, FPIC, and buffer pool figures. Thirteen corrective action requests and six outstanding corrective actions during verification signal material quality concerns that temper confidence in the credit claims.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% in the verification report (justified as 'quantified') but 20% in the monitoring report and 'deemed negligible' in the validation report — a three-way inconsistency that undermines the leakage assessment
• ⚠The monitoring report claims only 84,000 tCO₂e for the 2018–2022 period against a lifetime ex-ante estimate of ~12.7 million tCO₂e, meaning the project delivered roughly 11.5% of the pro-rata expectation for the elapsed period, raising questions about baseline realism
• ⚠FPIC is reported as conducted in the verification report but not conducted in the monitoring report — a direct contradiction on a fundamental safeguard
• ⚠The definition of 'friche' was extended to include abandoned industrial/urban land to allow broader participation, which weakens the additionality case for those parcels
• ⚠Thirteen corrective action requests and two clarification requests were raised and closed during verification, including missing demonstration of regulatory surplus and incomplete market-leakage information

Credit Vintages