Verra, the world’s leading standards setter for climate action and sustainable development, has released the first asset methodology in its Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) Program. The Methodology for Time Savings from Improved Cookstoves enables project proponents to quantify the time households save by switching to clean, efficient cookstoves.
The SD VISta Program is the premier standard for certifying the real-world benefits of social and environmental projects and their contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as allowing stakeholders and investors to directly finance these social goods. An SD VISta asset is a tradable unit representing a unique sustainable development benefit that has been quantified using an SD VISta asset methodology and verified by independent third parties.
One “time savings unit” represents the average number of hours each household saves per year on time spent collecting fuel and cooking. The projects using the time savings methodology will contribute to SDGs 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).
Buying these assets allows purchasers to demonstrate that they are financing improvements in gender equity and economic prosperity for women and children. The revenue generated from the sale of these assets helps to equip local communities with resources (e.g., farming tools and equipment, housing appliances) that can strengthen their livelihoods and enhance their well-being.
C-Quest Capital, an award-winning global carbon project developer with a mission to transform the lives of families in vulnerable communities around the world, developed the methodology following the SD VISta asset methodology review and approval process, including assessment by a third-party auditor. The methodology is now available to any project developer who seeks to develop a project for the same activities and wants to register it in Verra’s SD VISta Program. The first project to register using this methodology is a large efficient cookstove project in remote rural Angola.