The Breathing Space Improved Cooking Stoves Programme, India - VPA No. 02 Envirofit

Audit Analysis

The Breathing Space improved cookstove project in India has a verified additionality test and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but is undermined by an extensive list of over 30 material findings, 17 corrective actions, and multiple cross-document contradictions on key parameters such as the fNRB value, additionality test type, and FPIC status. The project-specific baseline, unaddressed reversal risk, and absence of a buffer pool leave meaningful integrity gaps. Despite these concerns, the project delivered roughly 300% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the monitored period, indicating no over-crediting risk.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Over 30 material findings and 17 corrective actions raised across the PoA-DD, VPA-DDs, and GS Passport, indicating systemic documentation and calculation weaknesses in the project's reporting
• ⚠Reversal events are explicitly 'not addressed' in the verification report and no buffer pool percentage is stated, leaving permanence risk unquantified for a cookstove project where stove failure or reversion to traditional stoves is a realistic risk
• ⚠The monitoring report template was altered by the project proponent (flagged as a material finding), raising concerns about the integrity of the MRV process
• ⚠FPIC status is contradictory: the PDD (2011) states FPIC was conducted, while a 2017 appendix states it was not, with no reconciliation in the verification report
• ⚠The fNRB value shows a unit or method inconsistency across documents (0.9115 in the verification report vs 90.5 in the PDD), and a material finding notes the country average was used instead of the required state-specific value

Credit Vintages Exhausted