Samarth- Empowering lives through clean technology

Audit Analysis

The Samarth cookstove project in India has VVB-confirmed additionality and no reported reversal events, but is undermined by a project-specific baseline, a 0% leakage deduction with inconsistent justification across documents, and the absence of a buffer pool. The verification report identifies 18 corrective actions and the project delivered only ~61% of the pro-rata emissions-reduction expectation for the 2025 monitoring period. A critical contradiction on FPIC (stated as conducted in the PDD but negated in the validation report) raises greenwashing concerns for a domestic household project.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠FPIC contradiction: the PDD (2023) states FPIC was conducted, but the validation report (2024) records it as not conducted — a material safeguard gap for a domestic cookstove project targeting rural households
• ⚠0% leakage deduction in the verification report contradicts a 0.95% figure in the validation report and a 'deemed negligible' justification in the monitoring report, leaving the leakage treatment inconsistent across documents
• ⚠18 corrective actions were required by the VVB, including unfixed stove repairs, calculation errors in fuel savings and project fuel consumption, and missing supporting evidence for the non-renewable biomass fraction
• ⚠The project delivered only ~61% of the pro-rata lifetime emissions-reduction expectation for the 2025 monitoring period (30,555 tCO₂e vs. ~50,196 tCO₂e expected), signalling potential over-crediting in the ex-ante estimate

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