Sichuan Rural Poor - Household Biogas Development Programme

SELLER

UPM Umwelt-Projekt-Management GmbH

PROJECT SUMMARY

The Sichuan Rural Poor-Household Biogas Development Programme, jointly developed and managed by German UPM Umwelt-Projekt-Management GmbH and its Chinese partner Chengdu Oasis Science & Technology Co Ltd, aims at improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people in rural Sichuan while contributing to protect the earth’s climate and promoting sustainable development. To this end, this programme exclusively addresses poor smallholders with just a few pigs and uses carbon finance to help them afford the purchase and maintenance of biogas digesters.

This approach has been very successful. Meanwhile, 395,435 low-income rural households in China’s Sichuan province have decided to take part in this programme and are benefitting from using proven and reliable biogas digesters and efficient biogas cook stoves making it one of the largest and most impactful household biogas programmes in the world.

The biogas digesters are fed with animal manure, previously just discharged into open pits, and convert it into clean and affordable biogas to be used conveniently for cooking, heating, or lighting instead of coal and firewood. After switching to biogas, each participating smallholder farmer family saves approx. 1.8 tCO2e of methane and carbon dioxide emissions year by year. This amounts to an annual GHG emissions avoidance of around 725,000 tCO2e.

All biogas equipment distributed under this programme is produced domestically in China and adheres to Chinese quality and safety standards. It is installed and maintained by the Sichuan Rural Energy Office (SREO) via its dense network of local service centers and its many certified biogas technicians all over Sichuan.

All households supported by this programme have received the required trainings by SREO staff on safe use of biogas to prevent any dangerous accidents and make sure that the biogas digesters operate without malfunctions or interruptions until (or even beyond) their 20-year lifetime.

In addition to the Gold Standard, this programme has also been certified by the CDM with ID CDM PoA 2898.

GS VERs from UPM’s Sichuan Household Biogas Programme have been rated by Calyx Global with a tier 1 GHG rating of A on its new 8-point scale ranging from AAA to D and an SDG rating of 4+ on a 5-point scale ranging from 1+ to 5+, with 5+ being the highest quality. In addition, according to Calyx Global, this PoA does not have any significant environmental, social or governance risks. With this performance, UPM’s Sichuan Household Biogas PoA ranks among the best household biogas programs worldwide in terms of verifiably achieved climate and SDG impact.

Project Impacts and Benefits

The Sichuan Household Biogas PoA is one of the world‘s most ambitious and effective climate protection programmes under CDM and Gold Standard. It sets the benchmarks for successful climate action and sustainable development. It substantially improves the lives of nearly 400,000 low-income rural households or 1.2 million needy people in Sichuan and verifiably helps achieving the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

SDG 3 – Good Health & Well-Being: By providing smoke-free fuel, the project significantly reduces the concentration of SO2, CO, CO2, NH3 and PM10. In regions with traditionally high coal consumption, respiratory diseases are a serious health issue, especially for both women, who mainly do the cooking and stay home during the day, and their children. In addition, the project’s improved sanitary conditions prevent zoonotic diseases and infections due to improper manure handling.

SDG 5 - Gender Equality: In comparison to the traditional open fire stoves, the new easy-to-use and efficient biogas cook stoves save considerable cooking time per day for women which they can now use for other purposes

SDG 6 – Clean Water & Sanitation: Improved management of pig manure, less fertilizer and pesticide use and better sanitary conditions on the participating farmer’s premises protect soils and water resources and benefit both local people and the environment.

SDG 7 – Affordable & Clean Energy: All nearly 400,000 PoA households get access to clean, convenient and affordable biogas. This saves high expenditures for costly coal and also strongly reduces the time spent for purchasing coal or collecting firewood.

SDG 8 – Decent Work & Economic Growth: An estimated 10,000 total jobs related to construction and maintenance of biogas plants have been created by the project in the local biogas sector, thereof some 2,000 permanent jobs and 8,000 temporary jobs.

SDG 13 – Climate Action: Due to the reduction of methane emissions formerly originating from the open pig manure pits and of carbon dioxide emissions caused by the common use of coal and firewood as cooking fuel in the baseline scenario, this PoA saves approx. 725,000 tCO2e of GHG emissions year by year and reduces annual coal consumption by around 340,000 tons.

Note: All reported impact figures apply for the full scale of this PoA GS1239 with its 87 CPAs (Component Project Activities).

Certification documents for this programme of activities can be found in the listing for the POA GS1239 and the listing for project activity GS1288  in the Gold Standard Impact Registry.  Further information on the project can be seen in the project spotlight on the Gold Standard website Project Spotlight: Sichuan Household Biogas Programme  | Gold Standard | GS

N.B.  Credits from other vintages are available directly from the project developer sales@upm-climate.eu