Travis County Reforestation Program 2021

Audit Analysis

The Travis County Reforestation Program is a VVB-verified urban reforestation project with a confirmed combined additionality test and a 5% buffer pool, but it carries significant material findings including a 1.3-acre area reduction, a baseline canopy correction from 0% to 16.63%, and severe mortality at one site due to drought and fencing failure. The verified ERR of 1,169 tCO₂ for the first ~4-year monitoring period represents roughly 247% of the pro-rata expectation from the 3,076 tCO₂ lifetime ex-ante estimate, indicating the project is over-delivering relative to its revised baseline, though the original PDD claim of 3,831.6 tCO₂ was substantially higher. Leakage treatment is entirely absent from the record, and several safeguards elements (FPIC, grievance mechanism) are undocumented.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Leakage deduction and justification are entirely absent from all available documents for a reforestation project where displacement of existing vegetation or land-use change is a realistic risk
• ⚠Baseline canopy coverage was corrected from 0% to 16.63% during verification, indicating the original PDD overestimated the carbon gain by ignoring pre-existing tree cover
• ⚠Site 6 experienced near-100% mortality on 0.21 acres due to herbicide runoff and cattle grazing, with survival rates below the 25% protocol threshold, and extreme drought in Central Texas is expected to continue
• ⚠The PDD originally claimed 3,831.6 tCO₂ while the current verified figure is 1,169 tCO₂ — a 69% reduction that, while partly attributable to different reporting bases, signals a materially weaker project than initially presented
• ⚠FPIC and grievance mechanism are not documented in any available record despite the project operating on floodplain land with multiple landowner partnerships
• ⚠Leakage not addressed in project documentation

Credit Vintages