Up Energy Improved Cookstoves Programme, Uganda – CPA No 042 supported by Republic of Korea

Audit Analysis

The Up Energy Improved Cookstoves project in Uganda is a Gold Standard energy-efficiency project with VVB-verified additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but it is undermined by a severe discrepancy between the verified ERR (600,815 tCO2e for 2022) and the ex-ante lifetime estimate (113,098 tCO2e for the 2024–2029 crediting period), multiple parameter contradictions across documents, and the absence of a buffer pool. The project's safeguards and stakeholder engagement are reasonably documented, yet the ERR inconsistency and a double-counting corrective action raise material over-crediting concerns.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ERR of 600,815 tCO2e (2022 monitoring report) is approximately 5.3× the entire ex-ante lifetime estimate of 113,098 tCO2e for the 2024–2029 crediting period, indicating a possible scale change, data error, or over-crediting risk
• ⚠Corrective action CAR#2 explicitly requires cross-checking ICS databases to avoid double counting with an existing project, signalling a potential double-claim risk
• ⚠Usage monitoring method is contradictory: the verification report describes an annual survey while the 2024 appendix describes the method as 'assumed'
• ⚠FNRB method is inconsistent: the verification report cites a national default while the 2025 validation report cites a local field measurement

Credit Vintages Exhausted