Sustainable Agroforestry Based Dairy Value Chain in Mount Elgon, Kenya

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard agroforestry-dairy project in Kenya with a VVB-verified combined additionality test and a 25% buffer pool, but undermined by a significant discrepancy in lifetime ERR between the PDD (1.16 MtCO₂e) and the monitoring report (354 ktCO₂e), a contradictory baseline method description, and a 0% leakage deduction that is difficult to justify for a soil-carbon project. Operational disruptions (COVID-19, FMD outbreak, elections) and multiple corrective actions signal ongoing implementation fragility.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Lifetime ex-ante ERR differs by a factor of ~3.3 between the PDD (1,163,783 tCO₂e) and the monitoring report (354,327 tCO₂e), indicating either a major scope reduction or an originally overstated claim.
• ⚠Baseline method is described as 'jurisdictional' in the monitoring report but 'project' in the validation report — a material inconsistency that affects the stringency of the counterfactual.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% for a soil-carbon project; the verification report calls the justification 'quantified' while the earlier monitoring report calls it 'deemed negligible', leaving the basis unclear.
• ⚠Reversal events are flagged as 'not addressed' in the structured record, even though the narrative describes a conservative full-reversal treatment for areas leaving the project.
• ⚠Project KPIs were scaled down from 15,000 to 11,250 dairy farmers, and a Foot-and-Mouth Disease outbreak in early 2024 caused livestock losses in sampled zones, raising permanence risk.

Credit Vintages