WWF Ningshan County High Efficient Cook Stove Project

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cook-stove project with a confirmed investment-test additionality and conservative fNRB of 100%, but undermined by eight material findings, 23 corrective actions, and multiple cross-document contradictions in ERR figures, crediting period, and FPIC status. The project delivered roughly 80% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation, indicating no over-crediting, yet the absence of a stated buffer pool and the project-specific baseline leave residual permanence and baseline-validity concerns.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Site visit gap exceeded three years; credits for the period prior to three years before the site visit were excluded from the claim (material finding in the 2026 verification report).
• ⚠Twenty-three corrective actions were required, spanning missing equipment calibration records, unclear survey methodology, inconsistent thermal-efficiency values (25% vs 28.9%), and unreadable source documents.
• ⚠Crediting period is stated as 2013–2023 (10 years) in the 2026 verification report but 2015–2046 (31 years) in the 2018 monitoring report — a fundamental scope discrepancy.
• ⚠FPIC is recorded as conducted in the 2018 verification report but not conducted in the 2020 monitoring report, creating uncertainty about free, prior, and informed consent.
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, leaving the project's reversal risk (stove breakdown, disuse) addressed only by the fNRB factor.

Credit Vintages