Nearly all existing carbon credits generated by cleaner cookstove projects cannot use a market-leading quality label unless they switch to more stringent methods of calculating emission reductions approved by a leading voluntary carbon market watchdog.
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) announced on Friday that it has rejected two popular rulebooks for carbon-offsetting activities that aim to cut emissions by introducing more fuel-efficient cookstoves in households primarily in the Global South. The carbon savings are then sold as carbon credits.
Credits issued under the methodologies, currently used by most cookstove projects, cannot claim the “Core Carbon Principles” (CCP) seal of approval after the ICVCM judged their criteria to be “insufficiently rigorous”. Another rulebook used by hundreds of projects was withdrawn from the assessment process after carbon standard Verra developed a replacement methodology.
Nearly two-thirds – 64% – of all cookstove offsets available in the market at the end of 2024 were based on those methodologies, according to an analysis of data published by the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. The projects have been questioned for overstating their climate benefits.
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More rigorous rules approved
On Friday, ICVCM also approved Verra’s new method and two other rulebooks proposed by Gold Standard for developing cookstove activities on the condition that projects also comply with stricter technical criteria to assess emission reductions and reduce the risk of generating too many offsets.
Carbon credits produced under the approved methodologies accounted for less than 3% of available cookstove offsets at the end of 2024. It is not yet clear how many of those credits respect the additional requirements imposed by ICVCM.
A spokesperson for Gold Standard said “further assessment” will be required to ensure compliance, adding that more specific guidelines for projects seeking CCP-labelling will be made available soon.
Additionally, ICVCM still needs to rule on the eligibility of over 28 million cookstove credits – 33% of the total – issued under older versions of a Gold Standard methodology.
Annette Nazareth, ICVCM chair, said “we understand many existing projects will choose to use the new methodologies and conditions we have approved today”.
Verra will require developers to update their current projects to the new methodology approved by ICVCM by 2027, a spokesperson said, adding that the body’s decision represents “an important shift towards higher integrity in the market”.
“We recognise the importance of this type of project for unlocking climate finance and enabling sustainable development as well as the positive impact of cookstoves at the household level,” added ICVCM’s Nazareth.
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A faltering market
Carbon markets have long been touted as key for funding programmes that help communities in the Global South shift towards cleaner and healthier way of cooking. Over 2 billion people worldwide – half of whom are in Africa – lack access to clean cooking methods, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Carbon project developers provide households with improved cookstoves that are either powered with cleaner energy or require less firewood or charcoal to run. Project owners can then sell the savings in carbon emissions as credits to third parties seeking to reduce their carbon footprint.
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But cookstoves projects developed under the methods rejected by the ICVCM have been found to grossly overestimate their climate benefits by issuing more carbon credits than justified by the real-world impact of their activities.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found in a large-scale study published last year that on average cookstove projects produced over 10 times more offsets than they should have done. They said that is because the rules allowed project developers to overestimate the impact of fuel collection on deforestation and to overstate how often people use the new cookstoves.
A Climate Home investigation found similar issues across a number of projects in India.
Reeling from scandals
ICVCM said on Friday that older methodologies lacked either “best practice” measurement methods or effective controls on avoiding overestimation from fuel savings.
Its CEO Amy Merrill said that the approval of new methods “will strengthen the sector for the future” and “provide the confidence needed to ensure that carbon finance can flow into these projects”.
ICVCM said it expects “several hundred thousand” CCP-labelled cookstove credits to be issued in the coming year thanks to a “large pipeline” of new projects planning to use the approved methodologies.
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The market for cookstove carbon credits has been reeling from a major scandal over the past several months.
Kenneth Newcombe, former CEO of leading developer C-Quest Capital, was charged in October 2024 with fraud by US authorities which accused him of faking the emissions-reduction data of cookstove projects across Africa and Asia, as part of a scheme to obtain millions of carbon credits. A spokesperson for Newcombe denied the allegations at the time.
In the aftermath of the investigation, Verra cancelled 5 million credits generated by C-Quest Capital projects to compensate for the excess issuances.
At the end of February 2025, C-Quest Capital filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the US state of Delaware citing financial distress. Private equity firm Vision Ridge, a major investor in the company, sought $170.6 million in damages, according to court filings.
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