Top Third Ventures Stove Programme CPA KE0007 – BURN Efficient Cookstoves for Kenya supported by Republic of Korea

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Kenya with VVB-verified additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but undermined by a large gap between assumed (90%) and verified (55%) usage rates, the absence of a buffer pool, no FPIC, and numerous material findings and corrective actions. Significant contradictions across documents in ERR figures, leakage treatment, and fNRB method reduce confidence in the data. The project is functional but carries moderate over-crediting and documentation-quality risks.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified usage rate (55.3%) is only 61% of the assumed rate (90%), raising over-crediting risk for the ex-ante estimate
• ⚠No buffer pool is in place despite a 5-year crediting period with no reversal protection mechanism
• ⚠The ex-ante lifetime ERR figure is contradictory within the PDD (37,825 vs 129,609 tCO₂e), a 3.4× discrepancy that undermines confidence in the baseline
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted per the 2024 verification report, despite a positive finding in the 2023 validation report
• ⚠Over 50 corrective actions were required by the VVB, indicating substantial documentation and calculation deficiencies

Credit Vintages