Sustainable Market Development of Improved cooking in rural Nepal by Practical Action

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard improved-cooking project in Nepal has a verified additionality assessment and no reversal events, but is undermined by a project-specific baseline with no stated reassessment date, a large volume of material findings and corrective actions (21 items), and seven cross-document contradictions. The VVB applied a conservative 0.7509 adjustment factor for non-project device usage, and the 2024 verified ERR of 13,020 tCO₂e represents roughly 54% of the pro-rata annual expectation, indicating under-delivery rather than over-crediting. Documentation quality is weak, with low extraction confidence and numerous monitoring-report errors.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠21 corrective actions required in the 2024 verification report, including inconsistent operational rates, mismatched ER values across sheet tabs, and missing sampling methodology
• ⚠Seven contradictions across documents, including FNRB method (local field vs national default) and a 3× gap between claimed and verified ERR in the 2023 verification report (35,321 vs 10,545)
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted despite the project operating in rural Nepal with indigenous and local communities
• ⚠Crediting period end date is not stated in any available document, making pro-rata delivery analysis uncertain
• ⚠Small-scale threshold was not justified in the initial PDD, and the baseline scenario identification required elaboration per the VVB

Credit Vintages