UpEnergy-Social and Climate Impact Programme- Cooking Devices VPA-24

Audit Analysis

The UpEnergy cooking-stove project in Malawi has confirmed additionality (combined test verified by Carbon Check) and documented safeguards including FPIC and a grievance mechanism, but suffers from a notable absence of a buffer pool, a project-specific baseline, and a 0% leakage deduction whose justification is inconsistent across documents. Thirteen corrective actions raised by the VVB and a significant crediting-period discrepancy between the validation and monitoring reports undermine confidence in the robustness of the claimed emission reductions.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Crediting period stated as 2021-2028 in the monitoring report but 2026-2030 in the validation report (dated 2025-12-11), creating uncertainty about which period the ERR figures apply to
• ⚠Thirteen corrective actions were required by the VVB, including calculation-method errors, stove-lifespan non-compliance with the VPA, and failure to demonstrate compliance with applicable activity requirements
• ⚠Leakage justification is contradictory: the 2025 verification report says 'quantified' while the 2024 monitoring report says 'deemed negligible', yet the deduction is 0% in both cases
• ⚠fNRB method changed from 'local field' (validation report, 2022) to 'national default' (verification report, 2025) without a clear explanation in the extracted record

Credit Vintages