Up Energy Improved Cookstoves Programme, Uganda – CPA No 021

Audit Analysis

The Up Energy Improved Cookstoves project in Uganda has a confirmed additionality assessment and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but is undermined by an unusually large number of material findings and corrective actions (over 30 items), a project-specific baseline, no stated buffer pool, and multiple contradictions across documents on key parameters including the crediting period, FNRB value, and FPIC status. The verified ER figure exceeds the lifetime ex-ante estimate, raising over-crediting concerns that are not fully resolved by the available documentation.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ER of 119,997 tCO2e exceeds the lifetime ex-ante estimate of 89,824 tCO2e, indicating the project delivered 134% of its total expected lifetime reduction in a single monitoring period (6.5 months of a 7-year crediting period)
• ⚠Crediting period stated as 7 years (2019–2026) in the monitoring report but 5 years (2024–2029) in the validation report — a fundamental inconsistency that affects all pro-rata calculations
• ⚠FNRB value changed from 0.82 (2025 verification report) to 0.39 (2026 verification report) with no documented justification for the 52% reduction
• ⚠Over 30 material findings and corrective actions across verification and validation reports, including discrepancies in ICS distribution numbers, VPA titles, and crediting period duration

Credit Vintages