Cookstoves coverage.
Overview
Cookstove projects in India have been heavily scrutinised following the 2024 over-crediting investigations. V4 rates cookstove credits with particular attention to actual usage verification, which requires direct household visits and Hindi-language or regional-language interviews with cooking decision-makers (typically women). The gap between distributed stove count and actually-used stove count is the single most important variable in cookstove credit quality.
Sample ratings
Illustrative ratings drawn from the V4 database. Project codes are anonymised.
Quality in the cookstoves category
Cookstove credits from India show bimodal quality distribution. Projects that conducted rigorous usage verification before issuance tend to score in the A-BBB range. Projects that relied on distribution records alone frequently score CCC or below when verified against V4 field interviews.
States covered
Common issues in cookstoves credits
- -Stove distribution records substituted for stove usage evidence
- -Fuel displacement fraction claimed at maximum theoretical rate
- -No community-level interviews in local language
- -Post-issuance abandonment not captured in monitoring reports