SMG Clean Cooking Program VPA01

Audit Analysis

The SMG Clean Cooking Program is a Gold Standard cookstove project in India with VVB-confirmed additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but it carries material integrity concerns including no buffer pool, unaddressed reversal risk, and a corrective action flagging potential overlap with two other VCS cookstove projects. The exact match between claimed and verified ERR (43,793 tCO₂e) and a 100%-assumed versus 90%-verified usage rate raise over-crediting questions. Multiple contradictions across documents and a cluster of corrective and forward action requests indicate documentation and process weaknesses.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Corrective action requires confirmation of no overlap with two other proposed VCS cookstove projects by the same CME in India — a potential double-counting risk
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, and reversal events are explicitly not addressed, leaving permanence risk unmitigated for a cookstove project
• ⚠Claimed and verified ERR are identical (43,793 tCO₂e), suggesting the verification may not have independently recalculated the figure
• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 100% in the verification report but verified at only 90% in the monitoring report, implying a ~10% over-crediting margin
• ⚠Five contradictions across documents (usage rate, FNRB value/units, FNRB method, benefit sharing, crediting period) reduce confidence in data consistency

Credit Vintages