Frequently Asked Questions.

Each tonne is calculated under an approved Gold Standard methodology: TPDDTEC (now the cooking and heating methodology) for improved cookstoves and ERSDWS for safe water. An accredited third-party auditor checks the calculation and the monitoring data before a single credit is issued. Our first monitoring report covered 90,241 cooking households.

Think of it as an audited set of accounts. The field data is the ledger, the methodology is the accounting standard, and the auditor signs the figures before anyone can rely on them.

Monitoring runs continuously through field operations, and on a randomly selected sample of homes an independent contractor fits sensors that record actual stove use, so the audit trail rests on measured behaviour rather than self-report.

Source: Gold Standard methodology for cooking and heating (formerly TPDDTEC)

TPDDTEC v4.0 explainer →   Safe water carbon logic →

A credit is the carbon outcome of a change that also brings safe water, cleaner kitchens, fewer waterborne infections, less pressure on forests and paid local work. Across our programmes over 670,000 people in Madagascar have been reached, and 861 maintained water systems were found 97% functional at independent evaluation.

Think of the carbon as the receipt and the household as the purchase: the receipt proves the transaction, the purchase is what people live with every day.

Each project tracks measurable co-benefits across health, time use, gender and household economics, on the same monitoring cycle as the carbon.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Our Impact →

We use the standardised indicators of the Gold Standard for the Global Goals SDG impact framework, disaggregated by gender where relevant. They are monitored through field operations and checked by the external verifier on every credit verification cycle, so a claimed outcome and a claimed tonne pass the same audit.

Think of it as a school report where every grade comes with the exam paper attached. One monitored figure from our programme: 2.55 hours a day saved per household on cooking.

Buyers who need a mapping to a reporting framework (GRI, ISSB, CDP) can ask our commercial team for one.

Source: Gold Standard for the Global Goals, standards and methodologies

Gender-responsive credits explained →

Over 670,000 people in low-income, climate-exposed communities in Madagascar: over 390,000 through improved cooking and over 283,000 through safe water. The figure grows as projects scale, and the impact page shows the date each figure applies to.

For scale, that is roughly the population of a city the size of Glasgow or Antwerp, reached village by village across one country.

Every number is a floor, counted from monitored households and functioning water systems rather than from installations alone.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Our Impact →

Our projects contribute principally to six of the 17 goals: SDG 1 No Poverty, SDG 2 Zero Hunger, SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing, SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 13 Climate Action and SDG 15 Life on Land, and to SDG 5 Gender Equality through the Gender Responsive label on our credits.

Think of the goals as a scorecard with 17 lines. A good project moves several lines at once, and we only claim the lines we can measure.

Each claimed goal is tied to a specific indicator, monitored and verified alongside the carbon.

Source: United Nations, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is the international standard for a community agreeing to an activity that affects it. Free: no pressure. Prior: before the activity starts, while the community can still shape it. Informed: with the facts, in their own language. Consent is the outcome. The standard was set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007 by 143 states.

Think of it as asking the hosts before moving the furniture, with time to say no, and with the plan explained in a language they speak.

SaniTap applies it on every programme, from stove distribution to water rehabilitation and the cyclone-resistant pilots: community meetings before the design is fixed, joint planning with commune and fokontany authorities, engagement through delivery, and a grievance channel open for the whole crediting period. Gold Standard requires it as a safeguard; we treat it as the baseline on every project. The full explainer covers UNDRIP, ILO 169, IFC PS7 and the Cancun safeguards, and our four-tier consultation process.

Source: UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)

Engagement on About Us →   Stakeholder consultations →

Every project follows the Gold Standard safeguarding principles and requirements (version 2.1): risk assessment, stakeholder consultation at several levels, gender safeguards, a grievance mechanism and do-no-harm provisions, checked at validation and at every verification.

Think of it as the pre-flight checklist that is run again before every flight, with the inspector reading it over your shoulder.

In Madagascar the consultation runs across four tiers, national, regional, commune and fokontany, and household, and the grievance channel stays open for the whole crediting period.

Source: Gold Standard safeguarding principles and requirements

Stakeholder Consultations →

The figure on our impact page is the share of Madagascar's population below the World Bank's international poverty line, taken from its Poverty and Inequality Platform. The current line is $3.00 a day (2021 PPP); on it, 69.2% of Malagasy people lived in poverty in 2021, the latest year published. The national poverty line gives 75.2% for the same year.

Think of the lines as different rulers. The international one lets you compare countries; the national one is drawn by INSTAT Madagascar in local currency. On either ruler, roughly seven in ten people in Madagascar live in poverty.

Alternative thresholds and the dates behind each figure are available on request.

Source: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, Madagascar

Madagascar has over 10,000 rural water points already in the ground. Our field surveys find roughly 40% completely out of action and another 45% significantly damaged, mostly because the agencies that built them left no maintenance funding behind.

Think of a street of houses with broken boilers. You could build new houses, or you could send an engineer with the spare part. Restoring a water point costs a fraction of a new borehole, reaches the community in weeks rather than months, and keeps the community's existing tenure and relationship with the site. A new drill also carries hydrological risk that a proven site does not.

We do drill where restoration is impossible or where the population has outgrown the original design, but the first question on every eligible site is whether the existing infrastructure can be brought back into service. Across 861 systems under professional maintenance, independent evaluation found 97% working.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Safe Water Projects →   How safe water displaces carbon →

SaniTap deploys piped systems where they fit. Endur'O, our joint venture with the Ministry of Water, runs 138 piped systems with solar-powered boreholes, on-site chlorination and NFC smart-tap metering in Moramanga and Alaotra-Mangoro, with a Ministry-approved pipeline of around 250 public water kiosks for Antananarivo.

Think of transport: a metro suits a dense city, a well-kept bus route suits a scattered region. Piped water is right where density, revenue and land tenure can sustain it. In much of rural Madagascar, fokontany of a few hundred people are spread across landscapes where a piped network costs far more per person than it can ever recover.

A professionally maintained community hand pump serves those settings at a fraction of the cost and, maintained rather than built-and-abandoned, delivers the same safe-water outcome. The choice is the right technology for each setting; the water quality standard is the same in both.

Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme

The Endur'O piped water model →   Safe Water Projects →

The 52% reduction in diarrhoeal disease we show comes from the World Health Organization's own systematic review and meta-analysis of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions (Wolf et al., The Lancet, 2022). Pooling field trials across low- and middle-income countries, it found that an improved water supply on premises with higher water quality reduced diarrhoea risk by 52% (risk ratio 0.48, 95% confidence interval 0.31 to 0.74).

Think of it as the difference between a filter at the tap and a filter at the river: the closer and cleaner the supply, the larger the effect. That highest-service category is the standard our piped systems and rehabilitated water points are built to.

For the wider burden, WHO estimates around 1 million diarrhoeal deaths a year from unsafe water, sanitation and hand hygiene, about 505,000 of them from contaminated drinking water alone. Our own field evidence agrees: the Cabinet MANO 2025 evaluation of rehabilitated water points recorded a community-level reduction of around 50% in waterborne disease after restoration.

Source: Wolf et al. 2022, The Lancet

WHO drinking-water fact sheet →   Wolf et al. 2022, The Lancet →   Safe Water Projects →

Charcoal in Madagascar is made in earth and pit kilns: wood is stacked, lit and smothered so it chars rather than burns. FAO puts the efficiency of traditional kilns at 10 to 22% by mass, which means 8 to 12 kilogrammes of wood for every kilogramme of charcoal. Most of the wood leaves the kiln as smoke, steam, tar and carbon dioxide.

Think of it as paying for a full basket of fruit and keeping one piece. The kitchen stove then burns the charcoal at its own efficiency loss on top.

Improved kilns can reach 30 to 42%, but almost all Malagasy charcoal is still made the traditional way. This is why a cookstove programme here produces such a large forest benefit per household, and why our emissions reductions are counted against the whole wood-to-charcoal-to-cook chain, not the stove alone.

Source: FAO, The charcoal transition (2017)

TPDDTEC v4.0 methodology →   Improved Cookstove Projects →

We deploy a portfolio, and pellets are already in it: our pellet-gasifier stoves burn densified biomass and give indoor air quality approaching that of a clean fuel. LPG is cleaner still, but rural Madagascar lacks the import terminal, bottling network and cylinder logistics it needs, and the fuel costs roughly three to five times as much per kilogramme as biomass. Ethanol has similar constraints; induction cooking needs a reliable, affordable grid that most of the country does not yet have.

Think of it as choosing a vehicle for a road that is not yet built. Worldwide, around 2.1 billion people still cook with polluting fuels, and the answer for most of them today is a stove that works with the fuel they can get.

For most rural Malagasy households that is a high-efficiency biomass stove, natural-draft or pellet gasifier, with the durability, monitoring and behavioural support that keep it in daily use. As electrification and LPG networks mature, the programme is designed to layer cleaner fuels in where they become accessible.

Source: WHO fact sheet: household air pollution and health

Two levers, one country →   Improved Cookstove Projects →

We run the programmes on the ground in Madagascar through MadAvance and Endur'O, and we sell the credits ourselves, so the same organisation answers for the field and for the claim. Over 120,000 stoves are in use and 861 water systems are under professional maintenance.

Think of a farm shop rather than a wholesaler: you can see the field the produce came from, and the people who grew it.

On integrity we stack above the minimum: Gold Standard certification, the Gender Responsive label and the ICVCM CCP label on issued credits, third-party sensor monitoring on a random sample of homes, and host-country authorisation on the path to CORSIA.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

Our Impact →

Today, improved cooking and safe drinking water credits under the Gold Standard for the Global Goals. Our issued credits so far, 76,607 verified emission reductions, come from the improved cooking VPAs 3, 5, 6 and 7 of programme GS12600.

Think of a portfolio with one proven line and several in development: nature-based removal through riparian bamboo and biochar, afforestation and reforestation, and cyclone-resistant infrastructure under the Adaptation Benefit Mechanism.

Each line is quantified under its own approved methodology so that no outcome is counted twice.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

Carbon Projects →

Yes. The projects are certified under the Gold Standard for the Global Goals, and the credits issued to date carry two labels on top: Gold Standard's Gender Responsive label and the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label. Gold Standard is also on ICAO's list of eligible programmes for CORSIA, and our projects are progressing toward CORSIA eligibility.

Think of it as a passport with visas: the passport (Gold Standard) is the baseline, and each label is a separate authority confirming something specific about the holder.

The registry shows every project, its status and its documents, so a buyer can check the certification rather than take our word for it.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

CORSIA position →   ICVCM CCP explainer →

Gold Standard is an independent NGO, founded by WWF and other NGOs, that sets the rules for climate projects to be certified for their emission reductions and their sustainable development outcomes. Its Gold Standard for the Global Goals framework requires additionality, conservative quantification, safeguards and independent verification.

Think of it as the building regulations for a carbon credit: anyone can put up a wall, but only an inspected one can be sold as safe.

It matters to buyers because Gold Standard credits are widely accepted by corporate programmes, the programme is CCP-eligible with the ICVCM, and ICAO lists it as an eligible programme for CORSIA, which is where airline demand for the 2027 to 2035 phase will come from.

Source: Gold Standard

Gold Standard certifies gender at two levels. Every project must be gender-sensitive: a do-no-harm safeguard, a gender gap analysis and consultations that reach women as well as men. The gender-responsive level is optional and harder: the project must set gender-specific goals, design its own indicators, hold a gender policy or action plan, and then prove through monitoring that it moved those indicators. The label is awarded on results, not intentions.

Think of the difference between a building that does not block the pavement and one designed so that a wheelchair user can use every floor. SaniTap's improved cooking VPAs are the first cookstove projects on the Gold Standard Impact Registry to carry the Gender Responsive label, and the issued credits carry it.

In practice it means women-led delivery roles paid under contract, time-use and health indicators disaggregated by gender, and the monitored 2.55 hours a day saved per household landing mostly with the women who cook. The full article explains gender-responsive against gender-sensitive.

Source: Gold Standard for the Global Goals, standards and methodologies

Gender-responsive, not gender-sensitive →   Gender-responsive credits explained →

The Core Carbon Principles are ten science-based principles set by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, the market's independent integrity body. A credit can carry the CCP label only when two tests are passed: the crediting programme is assessed as CCP-eligible, and the specific methodology version is assessed as CCP-approved. Gold Standard is CCP-eligible and its cooking methodology is CCP-approved, so SaniTap's issued credits carry the label.

Think of it as a food safety mark that requires both the factory and the recipe to pass inspection. Many cookstove methodologies did not pass: the ICVCM's status list marks several as "does not meet".

For a buyer the label is a shortcut through due diligence: it says an independent body, not the seller, has judged the credit to meet a global quality threshold.

Source: ICVCM assessment status: programmes and methodologies

ICVCM Core Carbon Principles explained →   Buy Credits →

Because the two labels test different things and both are hard. The CCP label tests the carbon accounting: the methodology, the baseline, the monitoring and the governance behind every tonne. The Gender Responsive label tests the social outcome: measured change for women, not a promise of it. Most projects aim at one. No cookstove programme has ever held both on issued credits, and SaniTap's are the first cookstove projects on the Gold Standard Impact Registry to carry the Gender Responsive label.

Think of a restaurant with both a hygiene certificate and a Michelin star: the first says nothing is wrong, the second says something is right, and they are awarded by different inspectors.

The labels sit on 76,607 issued verified emission reductions from improved cooking VPAs 3, 5, 6 and 7, with independent sensor monitoring behind the usage data. For a buyer that means one credit answers both the integrity question and the co-benefit question with evidence already checked by others.

Source: ICVCM, the Core Carbon Principles

Integrity stacking →   Our Impact →

We report co-benefits against the UN Sustainable Development Goals using the Gold Standard SDG impact tool and its impact reporting requirements. Depending on the project the set covers SDG 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13 and 15, up to eight of the 17 goals.

Think of it as one audit for two ledgers: every claimed SDG outcome is tied to a specific indicator, monitored on the same cycle as the carbon and verified by the same accredited body that verifies the credit.

Gender-disaggregated outcomes are reported under the Gender Responsive label on our credits. Buyers who need a mapping to GRI, TCFD, ISSB or CDP can request one from our commercial team.

Source: United Nations, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Our Impact →   Gender-responsive, not gender-sensitive →

Decertification is rare, and happens only when a project fails its ongoing monitoring, verification or governance requirements. Credits already retired against past emissions are unaffected. Credits issued but not yet retired may be withdrawn from the registry, and the developer typically compensates or replaces them.

Think of a product recall: items already used are not recalled, items on the shelf are, and the maker makes good. Our Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreements include a replacement warranty as standard, with a right of substitution from our other issued vintages.

For CORSIA buyers the practical point is to make sure any offtake agreement carries that warranty. Gold Standard also keeps a buffer pool as a system-wide backstop for reversal risk in nature-based projects, which does not apply to cookstove and water credits where a litre not boiled stays not boiled.

Source: Gold Standard for the Global Goals, standards and methodologies

ICVCM CCP explainer →

Most of the criticism of the last three years was deserved. It focused on over-crediting in some avoided-deforestation methodologies, weak additionality on projects that would have happened anyway, and the absence of independent oversight. The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market was created to fix the third problem, and its ten Core Carbon Principles now sort methodologies into approved and not approved.

Think of it as food labelling after a scandal: the rules got stricter, and the good producers welcomed it. Our response is design-level. We work only under methodologies the ICVCM has confirmed as CCP-approved, and our issued credits carry the CCP label.

We use conservative parameters (a monitored fraction of non-renewable biomass of 54% for Madagascar's east coast, a suppressed-demand baseline at the WHO minimum), we commission independent sensor monitoring on a random sample of households, and we publish the evidence base in the Knowledge Hub so a critical reader can inspect the accounting.

Source: ICVCM assessment status: programmes and methodologies

ICVCM Core Carbon Principles →   Suppressed demand explained →

Reduce first, then address what is left. That order is set by the ISO Net Zero Guidelines, the Science Based Targets initiative's mitigation hierarchy and the VCMI Claims Code of Practice. High-integrity credits complement internal decarbonisation in two cases: accelerating action beyond what internal cuts can deliver in the near term, and addressing hard-to-abate residual emissions that no economic internal measure can remove today.

Think of a household budget: insulation first, then a contribution to the neighbourhood scheme. One without the other is either incomplete or dishonest accounting.

Our credits are positioned as beyond value chain mitigation inside a well-designed net-zero strategy, never as a substitute for cutting your own emissions. If you are still deciding whether to buy any credits at all, our commercial team will say so plainly, including when the answer is not to buy from us.

Source: ISO Net Zero Guidelines

Buy Credits →

Additionality is demonstrated under the Gold Standard rules: without carbon finance, and in particular without the long-term maintenance funding that aid programmes do not provide, the reductions would not happen. Permanence is structural: a litre of water not boiled stays not boiled, and a kilogramme of biomass not burned stays unburned, so there is no stored carbon to reverse.

Think of the difference between a tree, which can burn, and a journey not taken, which cannot be untaken.

The monitored figure behind the claim: 97% of 861 maintained water systems working at independent evaluation, where the national picture is around 40% of rural water points idle.

Source: Gold Standard for the Global Goals, standards and methodologies

Our Impact →

We publish a technical summary for assessors covering the five areas that most affect an accurate assessment of the Improved Cooking Madagascar project: the methodology (Gold Standard TPDDTEC v4.0, CCP-approved by the ICVCM, and specifically not the metered and measured methodology), the fraction of non-renewable biomass (54%, the subnational value for Toliary Province), the monitoring approach (continuous digital stove monitors run by a third-party contractor), the safeguarding and FPIC documentation, and the government authorisation and CORSIA status.

Think of it as the service history that comes with a car: every parameter is set out with its methodological basis and its registry reference (PoA GS12600; VPAs GS12851, GS23369, GS23370, GS23409).

Any legitimate assessor or prospective buyer gets full access to the project files, including the PDD, the calculations, FPIC records, monitoring data and the Letter of Approbation, before a review begins. Assessors are asked to reference the summary and contact us first.

Source: SaniTap technical summary for third-party assessors

Technical summary for assessors →   Integrity stacking →   Contact us →

Beyond value chain mitigation is climate action a company funds outside its own value chain, in addition to its science-based targets rather than instead of them. The SBTi defines it as mitigation action or investment that falls outside a company's value chain, and recommends it in its Corporate Net-Zero Standard. It is a contribution claim: the company reports what it financed without adjusting its own inventory.

Think of paying for a neighbour's roof repair as well as your own: your house is no drier for it, but the street floods less.

Our credits suit BVCM well: Gold Standard certified, CCP-labelled, conservatively accounted, sensor-monitored, verified, with deep co-benefits in a least developed country. Because BVCM sits in a different budget line from offsetting and is reported as a contribution, it is often easier to approve and to disclose under CSRD, ISSB and CDP.

Source: SBTi, beyond value chain mitigation

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation explained →   Buy Credits →   Integrity stacking →

Either, but for a company with a science-based net-zero target the stronger use is as a BVCM contribution. An offset is subtracted from the company's reported emissions; a contribution funds mitigation beyond the value chain and is reported as "we financed the reduction of X tonnes".

Think of the difference between paying a bill and making a donation: both move the same money, but the receipt says something different about you.

The contribution route keeps the claim clean under the SBTi, the VCMI Claims Code of Practice and the Oxford Offsetting Principles (2024 revision), and lets the buyer value the co-benefits and adaptation outcomes as well as the carbon. We supply the verified impact data for a full evidence trail.

Source: VCMI Claims Code of Practice

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation explained →   Our Impact →

Corporates, financial institutions, brokers, NGOs, philanthropic foundations and public-sector partners. CORSIA-obligated airlines and corporate ESG procurement teams are a core audience, and so are organisations that want to develop projects of their own.

Think of three doors into the same building: buying credits, building a project, or structuring climate finance. ICAO's CORSIA covers international aviation worldwide, so the first door is a wide one.

Whichever door you use, the same team and the same evidence base are behind it.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA

Buy Credits →   Contact →

Yes. Our Carbon-as-a-Service practice covers the whole path: feasibility, methodology selection, project design, MRV system implementation, certification support and climate finance structuring.

Think of it as hiring the builder who has already built the same house: our own programme went from registration to 76,607 issued credits with two labels, and the lessons travel.

Work is scoped per stage, so you can start with a feasibility study and stop or continue at each gate.

Source: Gold Standard for the Global Goals, standards and methodologies

Carbon-as-a-Service →

Contact our commercial team directly. We support spot purchases, multi-year offtake agreements and tailored arrangements built around your climate strategy and, for airlines, the CORSIA phase you are buying against (2024 to 2026, or 2027 to 2035).

Think of it as buying from the grower rather than the market: the price covers the field, the monitoring and the labels, and the paperwork comes with it.

Credits are transferred to your Gold Standard registry account, where the serial numbers, the project documents and the labels are visible.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

Buy Credits →

Integrity is a chain of independent checks, and every link is public. The methodology: Gold Standard TPDDTEC for cooking and ERSDWS for safe water, both CCP-approved by the ICVCM. The certification: programme GS12600 with VPA GS12601 for safe water and VPAs GS12851, GS23369, GS23370 and GS23409 for cooking, every document on the Gold Standard registry. The verification: an accredited body audits every monitoring cycle, and our first report covered 90,241 households.

Think of a chain of custody for evidence: each handover is signed by someone who does not work for us. The labels on the issued credits, Gender Responsive and CCP, are two of those signatures.

Then the conservative parameters: a monitored fraction of non-renewable biomass of 54% for Madagascar's east coast, so only 54% of the biomass avoided is counted. Then independent sensors on a random sample of homes, producing continuous evidence of actual use. Then host-country authorisation: the Government of Madagascar has issued the Letter of Approbation and Article 6 arrangements are being progressed, on the path to CORSIA. Every item is a document you can request, cite or verify with the issuing body.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

ICVCM CCP explainer →   TPDDTEC v4.0 methodology →   How safe water displaces carbon →   Suppressed demand explained →

Yes, particularly as beyond value chain mitigation. They are designed to survive ESG audit and external assurance: Gold Standard certified, CCP-labelled, gender-responsive, sensor-monitored and independently verified.

Think of it as choosing a supplier your auditor has already heard of. The ISO Net Zero Guidelines, the SBTi and the VCMI all put internal reduction first and credits second, and our credits are built for that second place.

We provide the documentation your assurance provider will ask for before they ask.

Source: ISO Net Zero Guidelines

Contact us →

The full file: verification reports, the project design document, monitoring reports, serial numbers from the Gold Standard registry, and the evidence behind the co-benefit and SDG claims. For issued credits the registry record also shows the Gender Responsive and CCP labels.

Think of it as buying a house with the deeds, the survey and the building certificates in one folder, rather than a brochure.

Sample documentation is available on request before you commit.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

Price depends on project type, volume, contract structure and delivery timing. It reflects market conditions and the real cost of high-integrity impact: the Gender Responsive label, third-party sensor monitoring and the CORSIA pathway work that distinguish our credits.

Think of it as the difference between a generic part and one with a full test certificate: the second costs more to make and is worth more when questioned.

For scale, the first issuance was 76,607 verified emission reductions, with volumes growing each monitoring cycle. Our commercial team quotes against your volume and timing.

Source: Gold Standard registry, SaniTap projects

Talk to commercial →

Through long-term offtake agreements, co-developing projects, or supporting our adaptation and mitigation pilots: cyclone-resistant water infrastructure, Project RiverGuard and biochar.

Think of three levels of involvement: buy the harvest, invest in the next field, or help build the irrigation. Each adds to a programme that has already reached over 670,000 people.

We welcome strategic collaborations aligned with the mission and with the path to CORSIA eligibility.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Contact us →

Phase 1 (2024 to 2026) accepts emission reductions that occurred between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2026, from activities whose crediting period started on or after 1 January 2016. Airlines have until January 2028 to cancel their Phase 1 units. Phase 2 (2027 to 2035) opens a new window with tighter rules.

Think of a train ticket valid for a set of dates and a set of routes: a unit has to match two dates, the date the reduction happened and the date the activity's crediting period began.

Older vintages fall outside the window; newer ones may sit in Phase 1, Phase 2 or both, depending on when the activity started.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA eligible emissions units

The full pathway →

ICAO's Technical Advisory Body assesses each crediting programme as a whole (Gold Standard, Verra VCS, ART TREES and others) against the CORSIA emissions unit criteria. If the programme is approved, its projects can become eligible subject to the other rules; if not, none of them can be for that phase.

Think of a driving licence issued to a company's whole fleet rather than to each car: the car still has to pass its own inspection, but without the fleet licence it cannot be on the road at all.

Gold Standard was approved for Phase 1 in October 2024 with conditions and scope exclusions, and so far for 2027 to 2029 within Phase 2. The ICAO list of eligible units is published and updated.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA eligible emissions units

CORSIA explained →

It is the formal confirmation from the country where the reduction took place that the unit is authorised for international transfer and that a corresponding adjustment will be made in the country's Biennial Transparency Report, so the same tonne is not counted twice. Without it, the reduction stays on the host country's own ledger and an airline cannot count it.

Think of a cheque that needs two signatures: the issuer's and the bank's. The corresponding adjustment under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 Parties, is the bank's signature.

Insurance instruments have emerged as an interim guarantee while adjustments are made, but the adjustment itself is mandatory, not conditional. Madagascar has issued SaniTap a Letter of Approbation, and the Article 6 arrangements are being progressed.

Source: UNFCCC, the Paris Agreement

The full pathway →

CORSIA eligibility is confirmed credit by credit, not project by project. Each Gold Standard credit has a unique serial number, and once the phase, vintage, programme and host-country criteria are all met, those serial numbers are tagged in the registry as CORSIA-eligible.

Think of a batch of medicine: the factory can be licensed, but each batch carries its own number and its own release certificate.

Airlines therefore check the serial-level label, not the project's stated pathway. A project can be on the pathway, as ours is, without any issued credit yet carrying the label.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA eligible emissions units

CORSIA explained →

Yes. We structure forward agreements and long-term offtake contracts, typically three to seven years, so a buyer can plan around CORSIA Phase 1 and Phase 2 while the contract funds the programme's growth.

Think of a farmer and a bakery agreeing the next five harvests: the bakery secures supply, the farmer can plant.

With 76,607 credits issued and monitoring cycles continuing, forecast volumes by vintage are available to serious buyers.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA

Buy Credits →   CORSIA position →

Five steps. First, send our commercial team a short brief: your obligated volume, the CORSIA phase you are buying against (Phase 1, 2024 to 2026; Phase 2, 2027 to 2035; or both), your vintage requirements and any integrity criteria of your own, such as the CCP label, the Gender Responsive label or a geographic preference. Second, we share a project brief: programme GS12600, its VPAs, current CORSIA status, issued and forecast volumes by vintage, and the co-benefit story mapped to your ESG framework.

Third, we agree indicative terms: annual volume, delivery schedule, price and adjustment mechanism, quality guarantees and CORSIA-eligibility warranties. Fourth, we execute an Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement over the offtake period, typically three to seven years, with named vintage delivery dates and the eligibility conditions precedent. Fifth, on each delivery date the credits move to your Gold Standard registry account, with the corresponding adjustment marked for eligible vintages.

Think of it as a supply contract with a quality clause rather than a spot purchase. Airlines usually move from first contact to a signed agreement in six to twelve weeks, and we support the legal and procurement due diligence with methodology documents, verification statements, the Article 6 authorisation letter and the integrity paper trail.

Source: ICAO, CORSIA

Buy Credits →   CORSIA position →   Contact us →

Most credits clear one bar: one methodology, one registry, one verification. Ours pass six, each defending the credit against a different buyer challenge. From the foundation up: Gold Standard for the Global Goals certification; the Gender Responsive label, the optional higher tier rather than the mandatory do-no-harm baseline; the ICVCM CCP label, an independent assessment against the ten Core Carbon Principles; third-party sensor monitoring on a random sample of installations; the Article 6 Letter of Approbation from the Government of Madagascar; and active progression toward CORSIA eligibility on ICAO's pathway.

Think of a rope: no single strand is unbreakable, and the rope is much harder to cut than any strand.

This matters to airlines buying forward today for credits they will retire in 2030 and beyond, when the criteria will have tightened, and to corporate buyers whose frameworks (ISSB, CSRD, SEC climate rules) keep raising the bar. A stacked credit carries more forward optionality than a single-standard credit at the same price.

Source: ICVCM, the Core Carbon Principles

Integrity stacking, the full article →   CORSIA explained →

Mitigation is anything that cuts greenhouse-gas emissions or removes gases already in the air. It has two families. Technology-based mitigation uses engineered systems: renewable energy, efficiency, fuel switching, methane and HFC destruction, direct air capture. Nature-based solutions use ecosystems: forest protection, reforestation, mangroves, riparian bamboo, biochar, soil carbon, usually with biodiversity, water and community benefits alongside.

Think of two ways to stop a bath overflowing: turn the tap down, or widen the drain. Carbon credits can come from either, provided the method is approved and the result independently verified.

Our portfolio spans both. Cooking and safe-water credits are avoided emissions from less biomass burned (over 120,000 stoves in use). Project RiverGuard is a nature-based removal: bamboo sequesters carbon as it grows and holds the riverbank. Biochar is a durable removal, locking carbon in soil for centuries. Technology credits generally have stronger permanence; nature-based credits generally cost less per tonne and carry richer co-benefits. Sound strategies hold both.

Source: IPCC AR6 Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Climate Mitigation projects →   Two levers, one country →

Ecosystem-based adaptation uses biodiversity and ecosystem services to help people adapt to climate change, which is how IUCN and the Convention on Biological Diversity define it. Instead of a concrete sea wall, restore the mangroves that absorb the wave; instead of engineering the river channel, restore the vegetation that holds the bank.

Think of a raincoat against an umbrella: the engineered option is quicker and predictable, the living option costs less per person, grows more effective as it matures, and brings biodiversity and livelihoods with it.

The leading frameworks (UNEP, IUCN, the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report) treat the two as complementary. SaniTap stacks them: the cyclone-resistant safe drinking water programme hardens the infrastructure, and Project RiverGuard restores the bamboo buffer that reduces the flood pulse the infrastructure has to survive.

Source: IUCN, ecosystem-based adaptation

Riverbanks, soil and carbon, the ecosystem science →   Project RiverGuard →

It meets every element of the definition. It is biodiversity-based: we plant non-invasive clumping bamboo (Bambusa balcooa, B. tulda, B. multiplex) chosen for compatibility with Malagasy riverine settings and zero spread risk. It delivers ecosystem services: sediment retention, bank stabilisation, water-table recharge, flood-pulse moderation and a wildlife corridor. And it reduces climate vulnerability: less farmland lost to cyclone-driven bank collapse, groundwater that lasts the dry season, cleaner water at the household abstraction point.

Think of a hedge rather than a fence: the fence is at its best the day it is built, the hedge gets stronger every year. A mature stand from year seven onwards stabilises the bank far better than the same stand at year three.

That trajectory means a well-designed EbA programme gains adaptation value across the funding period instead of depreciating like engineered works.

Source: Project RiverGuard

Project RiverGuard →   Riverbanks, soil and carbon, the ecosystem science →

Riparian buffers are among the better-studied ecosystem services. Peer-reviewed reviews consistently report sediment-delivery reductions of 50 to 80% for well-designed vegetated buffers across temperate and tropical settings (Correll 1997; Aguiar et al. 2015; the buffer-zone synthesis literature, referenced in our article).

Think of a doormat for a river: less sediment downstream means cleaner drinking water at abstraction points, irrigation works that do not silt up, and coastal fisheries not smothered by sediment plumes.

Our own contribution is a 15-year Bambusa balcooa plantation near Fort Dauphin, 18.13 hectares of measured canopy with satellite-tracked growth since planting. The RiverGuard siting platform uses that curve as a field benchmark, and the 2026 three-river pilot verified its site-suitability predictions against planting outcomes on all three sites.

Source: Riverbanks, soil and carbon, the ecosystem science (with references)

Riverbanks, soil and carbon, the ecosystem science →   Live siting platform →

Five, on every site. Income: planting is paid work, organised through village assemblies with documented consent, with women-led micro-nurseries on paid contracts. Harvestable biomass: from year seven, selective harvest of mature culms supplies poles, fencing and cooking-fuel feedstock, giving each site a local market that funds its own maintenance.

Think of a riverbank that pays rent. Third, avoided upland deforestation: households with a bamboo supply no longer walk to the ridge forest for poles and fuel, which relieves the pressure that drives the erosion in the first place. Fourth, a biodiversity corridor: continuous riparian vegetation reconnects fragmented habitat. Fifth, water-table restoration: the buffer re-infiltrates rain, steadying dry-season baseflow for every downstream well, pump and spring.

No engineered intervention delivers all five at once.

Source: Project RiverGuard

Community-led, women-powered delivery →   The SaniTap-MadAvance model →

Yes, provided the two outcomes are quantified and credited under separate instruments, so nothing is counted twice. Carbon credits cover the removal and avoided emissions (for riparian bamboo, biomass sequestration and the fuelwood no longer cut upslope, quantified under Verra's VM0047 methodology). Adaptation benefits are certified under non-market instruments: the Adaptation Benefit Mechanism, the Article 6.8 framework or the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, which do not create tradeable credits.

Think of a farm that sells both wool and meat from the same flock: two products, two buyers, one careful set of accounts.

Carbon revenue funds the planting and its stewardship; adaptation finance funds the community capacity, maintenance discipline and monitoring that keep the intervention delivering for the whole period. Project RiverGuard is designed for this two-stream model.

Source: Verra VM0047, afforestation, reforestation and revegetation

Article 6.8 and non-market finance →   Project RiverGuard →

The Adaptation Benefit Mechanism is a non-market instrument developed by the African Development Bank. Where carbon markets pay for tonnes of CO2, the ABM certifies verified adaptation outcomes: how much resilience was built, how much disaster risk was reduced, how much community capacity was created. The unit is a certified adaptation benefit, not a tonne.

Think of a building certified to withstand an earthquake rather than one paid for by the square metre. The methodology SaniTap co-developed with the ABM methodology panel is for tropical-storm-resistant safe drinking water: elevated storage, sealed borehole covers, tie-downs and cyclone-rated materials designed to survive a Category 3 cyclone and keep delivering safe water through and after it.

The metrics cover sustained safe-water access in the post-cyclone window when disease risk peaks, avoided displacement, avoided disease burden and the capacity built to maintain the system across future seasons. The methodology was approved by the ABM Executive on 29 November 2025. Our cyclone-resistant safe drinking water programme is the first live application, targeting the eleven districts damaged by Cyclones Fytia and Gezani in 2026 and, in the wider ranking, the roughly 2,000 kilometres of cyclone-exposed coast.

Source: African Development Bank, the Adaptation Benefit Mechanism

Loss & Damage Restoration →   Article 6.8, ABM and non-market finance →

No. The UN framework has three tracks: mitigation (cutting emissions), adaptation (reducing exposure and vulnerability to future impacts) and loss and damage (responding to harm that has already happened or cannot be avoided even with adaptation). The distinction was formalised at COP19 in 2013 (Warsaw International Mechanism), the fund was agreed at COP27 in 2022 and launched at COP28 in 2023 as the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.

Think of a house in a storm: fitting shutters before the season is adaptation; repairing the roof the storm tore off is loss and damage.

On a Malagasy water system the two look like this. Rebuilding a hand pump destroyed by Cyclone Fytia is loss and damage. Installing a cyclone-resistant pump in a coastal community not yet hit but in the path of intensifying storms is adaptation. One programme can do both, as our cyclone-resistant safe drinking water programme does, but the money comes from different channels: the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund and the ABM for adaptation; the FRLD for loss and damage.

Source: UNFCCC, introduction to loss and damage

Loss & Damage Restoration →   Post-cyclone rehabilitation vs pre-cyclone hardening →

SaniTap is an impact-first business that develops scalable climate mitigation and adaptation projects, including high-integrity carbon credit projects, in Madagascar. We design, implement and manage programmes that cut emissions while delivering safe drinking water, improved cooking and long-term health and environmental benefits for low-income communities.

Think of a utility that is paid by the tonne of carbon it avoids rather than by the litre or the meal, and that has to keep the pumps working to be paid at all.

So far the programmes have reached over 670,000 people, with 76,607 verified credits issued.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Carbon Projects →

A mission-driven, impact-first business. Revenue comes from the sale of verified carbon credits, which lets us scale sustainably and reinvest in high-integrity climate and community projects. Our implementing partner MadAvance, supported and funded by SaniTap since 2023, is a Malagasy NGO with its own board of Malagasy professionals and over 80 local staff.

Think of a company and a cooperative working the same land: one brings the finance and the market, the other the people and the place.

The structure keeps the delivery capacity Malagasy and the commercial accountability clear.

Source: About SaniTap

About SaniTap →

Core operations are in Madagascar, where we work with local partners and communities across 861 maintained water systems and over 120,000 stoves in use. SaniTap Ltd is headquartered in the UK, and we work internationally with corporate buyers, investors and partners.

Think of one deep root rather than many shallow ones: concentrating in one country is a choice that compounds impact and credibility.

The reasons for that choice are set out in the article Why Madagascar.

Source: SaniTap impact page, figures and dates

Carbon Projects →

Decades of on-the-ground implementation combined with carbon methodology expertise, project structuring, climate finance, MRV system design and stakeholder engagement. Co-founders Andrew Tanswell and Adriaan Mol have over 60 years of combined experience building impact ventures across Africa.

Think of a builder who has also been the architect and the surveyor: the team has run field operations, written the monitoring systems and negotiated the finance on the same projects.

The result on the registry is a programme that went from registration to 76,607 issued credits with two labels.

Source: About SaniTap

Meet the team →

We co-design projects with communities through MadAvance, a Malagasy NGO with more than 80 local staff and its own board. Engagement runs at community, regional and national levels, with feedback and grievance channels kept open for the whole project lifetime.

Think of a four-storey conversation: national ministries, regional authorities, the commune and fokontany, and the household at the pump or the stove. Consent is sought before the design is fixed, under the FPIC standard set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Our field account of a consultation that changed a project design is in the Knowledge Hub.

Source: UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)

Stakeholder Consultations →

No project is run from a foreign office. Every project on the ground is delivered by a named local partner with a defined role, and SaniTap sits in the middle as the international carbon and adaptation finance interface. MadAvance, a Malagasy NGO co-founded and funded by SaniTap in 2023, employs over 80 local staff across field operations, project management, community engagement, monitoring and maintenance; it delivers stove distribution, hand-pump rehabilitation, Kitchen Performance Tests and the preventive maintenance that keeps water systems working. It has its own board and legal identity; it is not a subsidiary.

Endur'O, a joint venture with the Ministry of Water, runs the piped strand: 138 solar-powered smart-tap kiosks in Moramanga and Alaotra-Mangoro, a Ministry-approved pipeline of around 250 kiosks for Antananarivo, 34 direct staff and a growing network of shopkeeper agents for top-ups. Alongside them: Domaine de la Cascade on bamboo propagation for RiverGuard, Cabinet MANO on GIS, biomass monitoring and the fNRB parameter, Face the Future on riparian silviculture, HoverAid on Mangoky-basin access, Rio Tinto QMM on the health, safety and MERV framework in Anosy, and the Ministries of Water and Environment on authorisations and Article 6.

Think of an orchestra with a local conductor: the capacity is built in Madagascar, salaried in Madagascar and stays in Madagascar, and the international revenue funds that build-out over fifteen years or more rather than paying for a one-off intervention.

Source: The SaniTap and MadAvance model

The SaniTap-MadAvance model →   About us →

Durability is designed in: local capacity through MadAvance, water-guardian training and incentives, maintenance funded by sustained carbon revenue, and governance embedded at commune level. A credit issuance horizon of ten years or more supplies the patient capital that durable outcomes need.

Think of the difference between a gift and a subscription: the gift is a pump, the subscription is the technician who visits it every week. That subscription is why 97% of 861 maintained systems were working at independent evaluation.

Carbon revenue is the subscription fee, and it only flows while the systems keep working.

Source: The SaniTap and MadAvance model

SaniTap-MadAvance model →