Stoves for Life: Energy Efficient Cook Stoves Project in Kakamega, Kenya

Audit Analysis

A long-running Gold Standard cook-stove project in Kakamega, Kenya, with VVB-confirmed additionality and no reversal events, but undermined by a project-specific baseline, absence of a buffer pool, a 0% leakage deduction contradicted by the PDD's own 5% figure, and an exceptionally long list of material findings revealing systemic data-quality and calculation errors. The verified emission reductions substantially exceed the pro-rata expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, yet the ex-ante baseline estimate itself is in serious dispute across documents (416,850 vs 2,637,601 tCO₂e), making the true over- or under-delivery ratio uncertain.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Ex-ante lifetime emission-reduction estimate differs by a factor of six between the 2017 PDD (2,637,601 tCO₂e) and the 2025 appendix (416,850 tCO₂e), making the pro-rata delivery ratio unreliable
• ⚠Usage-rate assumption dropped from 90% in the PDD to 68.1% in the 2025 appendix without a clear documented justification for the 22-percentage-point reduction
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% in the verification report contradicts the PDD's own 5% leakage provision; the 'deemed negligible' justification is not supported by a quantified analysis
• ⚠No buffer pool is in place for an energy-efficiency project with a 7-year crediting period, leaving no financial backstop against potential reversals
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted despite the project distributing stoves to rural households in Kakamega

Credit Vintages