UpEnergy-Social and Climate Impact Programme- Cooking Devices VPA-4

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cooking-stove project in Malawi with VVB-confirmed additionality and a strong claimed-to-verified ERR match (99.1%), but undermined by a project-specific baseline, a thin 0% leakage justification, and an unusually high volume of material findings and corrective actions that raise data-quality concerns. The electric cooktop distribution being NIL during the monitoring period despite being in the project design is a notable integrity gap.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Electric cooktop distribution was NIL during the 2024–25 monitoring period despite being included in the VPA-DD, raising questions about whether the project is delivering as designed.
• ⚠22 material findings and 25 corrective actions were logged in the 2025 verification report, including data mismatches between the monitoring report, ER worksheet, and sales database, indicating systemic MRV data-quality weaknesses.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% on the basis of 'deemed negligible' with no quantified analysis, which is a thin justification for a project distributing cooking stoves where displaced charcoal use could shift to other households or locations.
• ⚠Crediting period is stated as 2021-11-01 to 2028-02-14 in the monitoring report but 2026-01-01 to 2030-12-31 in the validation report (Dec 2025), an unexplained discrepancy that affects the validity of the ex-ante ERR baseline.

Credit Vintages