CLEAR Methodology

Since 2022, the CCA-led Clean Cooking and Climate Consortium (4C) has led a sector-wide effort to develop a new methodology for crediting emissions reductions from cookstove projects.

The Comprehensive Lowered Emissions Assessment and Reporting (CLEAR) Methodology for Cooking Energy Transitions is the first methodology to cover all common cooking transition scenarios, eliminating the need for multiple methodologies for cookstove carbon projects. Moreover, it has been developed as a public good, available for use by any standards body or bilateral/multilateral agreement. It is intended to become the standard methodology for cookstove projects under Articles 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement and throughout the voluntary carbon market, increasing consistency across the clean cooking carbon landscape. The CLEAR methodology incorporates the latest science on key parameters, increasing the requirements for substantiating the input parameters that have the most impact on emission reduction estimates, including mandating direct in-home measurement of fuel consumption. By using this methodology, clean cooking carbon projects will generate realistic emission reduction estimates and reduce integrity risks.

• In July 2024, 4C released a draft version of the CLEAR methodology and accompanying materials for public comment. The six-week commenting period concluded in August, and 4C received 40 submissions comprising nearly 700 individual comments.
• In November 2024, 4C submitted to Gold Standard and Verra a version of CLEAR revised in response to these comments.
• In March 2025, 4C revised CLEAR again in response to comments received from Gold Standard technical reviewers and submitted the revised version to Gold Standard and Verra.
• In May 2025, 4C further revised the CLEAR methodology to comply with Article 6.4 requirements and submitted this version to UNFCCC for review and approval under the Article 6.4 mechanism. Per UNFCCC requirements, this version includes approaches for ensuring a conservative baseline, additionality requirements, and guidance specific to cookstove activities, as well as more detailed analysis of potential leakage risks and mitigation actions. 4C also sent this revised draft to Gold Standard and Verra.

The current draft version of CLEAR, along with an updated Explanation of Decisions document, will be posted here in June.

 

Below is an overview of key revisions made to the CLEAR methodology based on Article 6.4 and ICVCM requirements, and incorporated into the latest version submitted to UNFCCC, Gold Standard, and Verra in May 2025. Please note that all revisions to CLEAR are subject to further changes pending final review by the carbon crediting programs.

Additionality

Summary of concerns: Most existing methodologies require demonstration of additionality through positive lists or financial, barrier, and/or common practice analyses, though the adequacy of these approaches remains debated.

Revised approach: In order to align with the latest UNFCCC guidance for Article 6.4 methodologies, project activities using the CLEAR methodology shall demonstrate that the project activity would have not occurred without carbon credit revenues and that such revenues enable project implementation by improving financial viability.

Project proponents shall also:

• Identify and describe relevant barriers faced by the proposed activity, and provide supporting evidence such as independent studies, publicly available surveys, or interviews with relevant stakeholders.
• List and describe parallel sources of funding for cooking energy transitions available within the project boundary and explain why they do not apply to the project activity. If they do apply, they must be considered in demonstrating the project’s dependence on carbon credit revenues.
• Demonstrate that the proposed activity is not directly mandated by law or triggered by any legal requirements.
• Demonstrate that the project technology has a market penetration no greater than 30% (not considering other carbon-financed activities).

Apply any additional additionality requirements of the carbon-crediting program under which the project proponent seeks to issue credits using the CLEAR methodology.

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Leakage

Summary of concerns: In the context of carbon credits, leakage refers to unintended increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions outside of the project boundary and which are attributable to the project activity. While leakage risks have been flagged by some carbon credit rating agencies and other stakeholders as a factor affecting the integrity of cookstove carbon credits, other stakeholders hold that leakage is not a material risk for cookstove projects. The majority of existing cookstove carbon methodologies apply a default leakage deduction of 5% to account for these risks.

Revised approach: The CLEAR methodology requires that projects apply a default adjustment factor of 2% to the emission reductions to approximate leakage emissions or evaluate the relevant potential sources of leakage and provide an evidence-based description and estimated quantification of each potential source and its relevance for the project.

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Wood to Charcoal Conversion 

Summary of concerns: The UNFCCC’s default charcoal conversion factor of 4:1 is lower than values reported in the literature for traditional charcoal kilning processes in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts and substantiated by recent field research.

Revised approach: The CLEAR methodology uses a 6:1 conversion factor, which is incorporated into upstream emission factor values and fNRB. Nonetheless, the methodology also includes emission factors based on a 4:1 conversion factor, to enable ICVCM Core Carbon Principles eligibility.

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Prior key revisions made following the 2024 public comment period include:

“Metered” terminology adjustment

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders pointed out potential confusion/conflation between the terminology describing metered technologies (which measure energy consumption) and stove use monitors (SUMs, which measure stove use).

Revised approach: The “metered” project category has been renamed to projects with “continuously tracked energy consumption” or CTEC projects. “Non-metered” projects are now “non-CTEC” projects. CTEC projects are those that continuously measure fuel or energy consumption directly on all project technologies and in all project households (no sampling allowed) using built-in or external data loggers (also known as metering), or through fuel sales records. Conversely, non-CTEC projects are those that measure project cookstoves energy consumption through Kitchen Performance Tests (KPTs; a field-based assessment used to estimate household fuel consumption under real-world conditions) or by using metering on only a subset of sites.

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Use of usage surveys to determine energy consumption

Summary of concerns: Methodologies have allowed the use of surveys and self-reported usage as a basis for emissions reductions calculations, raising concerns that the displacement of baseline technologies may be overestimated.

Revised approach: Survey-only options using CCT-derived fuel consumption ratios for determining energy consumption in the project scenario have been removed. The revised CLEAR methodology requires project proponents to measure project energy consumption directly through KPTs or by continuously tracking it. Survey-only approaches for measuring fuel consumption are not allowed. Annual usage surveys are applied to monitor any changes in household size or fuel mix, and to confirm ongoing use of the stove (see Definition of User vs. Non-user below).

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Determination of users vs. non-users

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders requested that CLEAR provide prescriptive guidance on what constitutes a “user”.

Revised approach: Requirements for what constitutes a user have been included in the updated version of the CLEAR methodology. Related terms have also been revised for clarity:

• A user has been defined as a project participant with a functioning cookstove that is in use once or more per week during a given monitoring period, confirmed through both self-reporting and visual inspection.
• Usage refers to the frequency or quantity of cooking with a given technology.
• Project technology days (PTDs) indicate the number of days for which project technologies are available (at the participant’s household, within the project boundary, and functioning) and in regular use (once or more per week) during a given monitoring period. This parameter is used for non-CTEC projects only.

Using these concepts, the revised methodology includes caps on the number of PTDs based on whether the project provides customer support actions described in the methodology. For a non-CTEC project to be eligible to claim up to 90% of maximum PTDs, the project proponent must take the customer support actions described in the methodology and provide details of how each condition has or will be met on the Project Information Cover Sheet during the design phase of the project.  Project proponents who do not undertake the customer support actions may claim up to 75% of maximum PTDs.

Emissions reductions are based on PTDs and KPT-derived energy consumption values, along with other parameters.

For CTEC projects, actual fuel consumption is measured in all project households, so usage rate isn’t a parameter for emission reductions in CTEC projects.

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Hawthorne Effect

Summary of concerns: One concern noted with KPTs is that cooks may increase their use of the project stove when the KPT is being performed due to social desirability bias (an effect known as the Hawthorne Effect).

Revised approach: To adjust for any potential Hawthorne effect, non-CTEC projects can either cap their ERs at 75% [*] of what the project KPT-based estimate would be, or they can measure any effects directly with stove use monitors (SUMs), comparing stove use during the KPT to the month before or after. If a potential Hawthorne Effect is measured using SUMs (meaning SUMs don’t show sustained project stove use), ERs will be adjusted proportionally downward. Project proponents cannot increase ERs based on SUMs use.

[*] CLEAR’s 75% cap on ERs when the Hawthorne effect is not directly measured is based on a review of published and gray literature, including recently released findings from a 2012-13 study by Berkeley Air Monitoring Group that did not find evidence of a strong Hawthorne Effect.

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Baseline energy consumption caps and flags

Summary of concerns: The CLEAR methodology published for public comment on July 2024 included a cap on baseline energy consumption values for primary fuelwood users in Latin America of 0.035 TJ/capita/year (2.25 tons/capita/year of air-dried wood) and 0.0156 TJ/capita/year (1 ton/capita/year of air-dried wood) for the rest of the world. For baselines (in any region) where charcoal is the primary fuel, the cap was set at 0.0059 TJ/capita/year (0.2 tons/capita/year of charcoal). Stakeholders commented that the caps for “the rest of the world” (outside of Latin America) were too low, especially for Asia, which many suggested should have its own distinct cap, set at a value between the caps for Africa and Latin America. Some commenters noted that the baseline cap for Africa was below many current verified carbon project baselines. Some commenters proposed caps for each country.

Revised approach: 4C decided to remove the distinction between Latin America and non-Latin American countries in the revised CLEAR methodology and instead apply global defaults and caps for baseline energy consumption.

Baseline energy consumption values (estimated with the KPT for non-CTEC projects or back-calculated for CTEC projects) for primary fuelwood users are capped at 0.031 TJ useful energy delivered/(person*year), equivalent to 2.0 tonnes/(person*year) of air-dried wood or a combination of wood and any other additional baseline fuels. Values above 0.016 TJ useful energy delivered/(person*year), equivalent to 1.0 tonnes/(person*year) of air-dried wood and additional baseline fuels are flagged for additional justification.

For baselines with charcoal as the primary fuel use, the cap is set at 0.012 TJ useful energy delivered/(person*year), equivalent to 0.40 tonnes/(person*year) of charcoal, and values above 0.0059 TJ useful energy delivered/(person*year) (0.20 tonnes/(person*year)) are flagged for further justification.

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Evolving baselines

Summary of concerns: The CLEAR methodology published for public comment in July 2024 addressed two baseline concerns with a combined approach: both changes external to the project that could impact the project baseline over the course of the crediting period, and changes internal to the project that result from a mismatch between the fuel types, fuel mix proportions, and household sizes documented during the baseline scenario and those reported by actual project households. Specifically, stakeholders questioned the feasibility of the requirement for accessing and monitoring non-project households.

Revised approach: The five-year crediting period is short enough that the CLEAR methodology does not consider that changes external to the project will impact the project baseline over the course of the crediting period. As such, the requirement to survey non-project households after the initial baseline has been removed in the revised methodology.

For projects with KPT baselines, the revised CLEAR methodology addresses potential over-crediting resulting from a mismatch between the fuel types, fuel mix proportions, and household sizes documented during the baseline scenario and those reported by actual project households during the first usage survey, relying on retrospective questions of project households during the first usage survey in any given household. Where a material discrepancy is revealed, project proponents must either not claim emission reductions for households that do not conform to the baseline profile or follow requirements on adjusting the baseline (toward lower baseline emissions). If no mismatch is identified, the baseline shall be recalculated at the start of each crediting period (every 5 years at a maximum).

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Applicability to institutional and/or commercial cooking

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders requested that the methodology apply to institutional and/or commercial cooking energy transition projects.

Revised approach: The revised CLEAR methodology is intended for use for institutional cookstove projects, and some CTEC commercial cookstove projects. Guidance for how to apply CLEAR to these scenarios is underway as of May 2025.

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Applicability to biogas projects

Revised approach: The revised CLEAR methodology is only applicable to biogas projects that use a continuously tracked energy consumption (CTEC) approach.

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Additional requirements for artisanal stoves

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders noted that artisanal stoves have wide variability in performance and thermal efficiency and as such, the CLEAR methodology should tighten applicability criteria for artisanal stoves.

Revised approach: The revised CLEAR methodology requires that for artisanal cookstoves, at least three randomly-selected samples of each cookstove model must be used when testing for ISO thermal efficiency, and when undertaking CCTs.

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Seasonality

Summary of concerns: Fuel consumption patterns can vary by season and seasons themselves vary by location. Even within a single location, fuel consumption can cycle through multiple seasonality-related patterns in a given year, making monitoring in every season logistically impractical.

Revised approach: The CLEAR methodology incentivizes transparency by requiring that prior to project validation, non-CTEC and CTEC projects using the KPT to measure the baseline must also use the baseline scenario survey to collect data on the relative fuel use at different times of the year to address potential seasonal variation. The following question (or an appropriate variation) must be asked, “Relative to the amount of fuel you used this week, are there other times of the year when you use more fuel? If so, when? And/or less fuel? If so, when?”

Project proponents are required to incorporate the resulting information into their monitoring plan design and to justify on the Project Information Cover Sheet how the approach they are taking will result in accurate baseline and project fuel use measurements. If space heating is common in the project area, the justification must include an explanation of how space heating has been addressed in the project design. If an accurate approach cannot be taken, then the project proponent must instead select and justify a conservative approach.

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Inclusion of transportation in upstream emissions

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders noted that upstream emissions should account for transportation, as emissions due to transportation of certain fuels like LPG may be material.

Revised approach: In the revised methodology, upstream emissions now include transportation of fuels (except for electricity where it is accounted for in a separate parameter).

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Marginal fNRB

Summary of concerns: Stakeholders noted fNRB would be more accurately measured as a marginal quantity rather than an average. Currently, fNRB is calculated as a national average, assessing the balance between how much wood is harvested and how much it regrows under standard conditions, over several years. A marginal approach to fNRB would focus on the change in woodfuel renewability due to the specific change a project makes in wood harvesting.

Revised approach: MoFuSS developers are currently exploring the implications of using a marginal approach to estimating fNRB. If UNFCCC determines that a marginal approach to calculating fNRB is allowable, MoFuSS may be used to calculate marginal fNRB for a given project under the CLEAR methodology.

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CLEAR accompanying guidance documents

The revised CLEAR methodology has various appendices, which include requirements and best practices for sample design, surveys, KPTs, CCTs, and SUMs.