Rotunda Forest Carbon Project

Audit Analysis

The Rotunda Forest Carbon Project is a 310-hectare soil-carbon project in Romania under VM0012 with a VVB-verified combined additionality test and a standard 12% buffer pool, but it is undermined by a project-specific baseline, a 0% leakage deduction with contradictory justifications across documents, and unresolved material findings including a missing non-permanence report. The project delivered only about 45% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the first three-year monitoring period, which is protective against over-crediting but signals baseline or monitoring uncertainty. Multiple contradictions in the record—particularly around safeguards, grievance mechanisms, and leakage treatment—reduce confidence in the overall data reliability.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR of 7,658 tCO2e is only ~45% of the pro-rata expectation (~16,913 tCO2e) for the 3-year monitoring period, indicating significant under-delivery relative to the PDD's lifetime estimate of 169,128 tCO2e
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% is justified as 'quantified' in the monitoring report but 'deemed negligible' in the validation report, creating an unresolved inconsistency in the leakage treatment
• ⚠Grievance mechanism is reported as present in the monitoring report (Jan 2021) but absent in the issuance document (Sep 2021), leaving the current status unclear
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted, and safeguards documentation is contradictory between the PDD (not mentioned) and the monitoring report (mentioned)
• ⚠Four material findings were reported, including a non-permanence risk report that was not initially provided to the auditor and only 24 of 28 planned sample plots established

Credit Vintages