Knowledge Hub

Knowledge & Insights.

Long-form explainers and insights on carbon credit projects, CORSIA, Gold Standard, ICVCM, and the breadth of SaniTap's work in Madagascar. Written for procurement teams, ESG buyers, project finance professionals, and anyone wanting the detail behind the headlines.

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Impact Measurement

Rights and consent

Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and why every SaniTap project runs on it

FPIC is the international standard for community consent on projects that affect people's lives and livelihoods. What FPIC actually requires, where it came from, and the concrete way SaniTap applies it across cookstoves,...

· 12 MIN READ Impact

Impact as outcome, theory of change and the discipline of behavioural monitoring

Impact is a household cooking cleaner three years on, a village drawing safe water twelve months on, a woman spending an hour a day differently. Not a number on a slide.

· 12 MIN READ Operations

Operational standards, health and safety, and how MERV keeps our impact real

Delivering carbon and adaptation projects at SaniTap's scale requires the operational discipline of heavy industry: inherited safety standards, a Take 5 briefing culture, and a MERV framework.

· 12 MIN READ

Safe Drinking Water

Safe drinking water

Piped water at scale, how Endur'O turns a fragile utility into a durable one

Most piped water systems in rural Madagascar break shortly after they are built and are never repaired. Endur'O's joint-venture model combines four revenue and cost levers to make them durable.

· 9 MIN READ Methodology

Suppressed demand, the baseline concept that makes safe-water carbon credits work

Suppressed demand is the accounting principle that lets a safe-water or clean-cooking credit be measured against the consumption a household should have, not the pinched consumption poverty forces.

· 14 MIN READ Explainer

How safe water displaces carbon emissions, the boil-water story

Safe-water carbon credits are less intuitive than clean-cookstove credits, yet the accounting logic is rigorous. A walkthrough of the counterfactual mechanics behind Gold Standard's ERSDWS v1.0.

· 12 MIN READ

Improved Cooking

Gender

Gender-responsive, not gender-sensitive, what the difference is, and why SaniTap chose the harder standard

Gender-sensitive projects notice gender; gender-responsive projects act on it. The gap between the two is definable, and the higher standard changes what a project actually delivers.

· 11 MIN READ Health

Indoor air pollution, the health toll of biomass cooking, and how SaniTap measures the reduction

Household air pollution from cooking on open fires and inefficient stoves kills 3.2 million people a year, including a quarter of a million children under five, mostly from pneumonia.

· 13 MIN READ Methodology

TPDDTEC v4.0, how improved cookstove credits are calculated

Gold Standard's TPDDTEC methodology is the foundational instrument for high-integrity clean-cookstove carbon credits. A technical walk-through of the version 4.0 framework and verification cycle.

· 15 MIN READ

Carbon Development

Explainer

ICVCM Core Carbon Principles in plain language

The Integrity Council's ten Core Carbon Principles are the emerging integrity benchmark for voluntary credits. A substantive walkthrough of each principle and how the CCP mark is assessed.

· 14 MIN READ Explainer

What gender-responsive carbon credits actually mean

Gender-responsive is a Gold Standard certification tier that goes materially beyond gender-sensitive consultation, and it changes what the credit itself represents on the ground.

· 11 MIN READ

CORSIA

Explainer

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, and why it changes how companies fund carbon credits

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) is the climate action a company funds outside its own value chain, on top of its science-based targets rather than instead of them. What BVCM is, why SBTi expects it, why it is a...

· 9 MIN READ Reference

Technical summary for third-party assessors, Improved Cooking Madagascar

The five technical parameters that matter most when assessing SaniTap's Improved Cooking Madagascar project: the carbon methodology, the fraction of non-renewable biomass, the monitoring approach, safeguarding and FPIC,...

· 6 MIN READ Explainer

Integrity stacking, why one integrity bar is not enough

Most carbon credits meet one integrity standard. SaniTap credits pass six independent bars, each addressing a different type of buyer concern. What integrity stacking is, why it matters for CORSIA-obligated buyers, and...

· 8 MIN READ Explainer

CORSIA explained for procurement and ESG teams

A working briefing on the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation: regulatory anatomy, phasing, offset arithmetic, and the five questions procurement teams must ask.

· 12 MIN READ Explainer

The path to CORSIA eligibility, what Gold Standard projects must add

Programme-level approval is necessary but not sufficient. The delta between Gold Standard certification and CORSIA eligibility: Article 6 authorisation, vintages, and phase-specific criteria.

· 11 MIN READ

Climate Mitigation

Climate mitigation

Two levers, one country, how improved cooking and safe water avoid emissions in Madagascar

SaniTap's mitigation portfolio combines improved cooking and safe drinking water in a single country. Both cut biomass combustion; together they cover the two biggest household emission sources.

· 10 MIN READ

Ecosystem-based Adaptation

Science

Riverbanks, soil, water and carbon, the ecosystem science of riparian restoration

When a Malagasy river loses its banks, it loses more than land. It loses the topsoil, the groundwater, the fisheries, the downstream coral, and the drinking-water quality of every community.

· 18 MIN READ

Climate Adaptation

Policy

Article 6.8 and adaptation, non-market finance, and how the ABM can fund tropical-storm-resistant safe drinking water

Adaptation does not generate a tradable tonne of CO₂, which is why adaptation finance has lagged mitigation finance for two decades. Article 6.8 and the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism (ABM) close that gap.

· 15 MIN READ

Loss & Damage

Methodology

Cyclone-exposure scoring, how SaniTap ranks 3,383 coastal fokontany

Every coastal community faces the same question before a cyclone-hardened water programme can prioritise anything: how often will a damaging storm strike here, and how many people will it hit?

· 14 MIN READ Strategy

Post-cyclone rehabilitation vs pre-cyclone hardening, the sequencing question

Every cyclone-response programme faces the same fork: rebuild what the storm destroyed, or invest in infrastructure designed to survive the next one. Different money, different funders.

· 11 MIN READ Climate science

Madagascar's cyclones, the record, the outlook to 2100, and what it means on the ground

The destructive capability bearing on Madagascar's people has risen about 4.6× since the 1980s and is on course for roughly 8× by the 2050s. Not more cyclones. Stronger ones, on more populated coasts.

· 12 MIN READ Climate science

When lightning strikes twice, predicting cyclones in Madagascar

How cyclones over Madagascar are predicted, why they are getting stronger, and what that means for building drinking-water systems that survive the storm. Three horizons, three questions.

· 14 MIN READ

Madagascar Story

Story

Why Madagascar, the case for action

Madagascar sits at the intersection of extreme climate vulnerability, extreme water insecurity, and an unusual carbon-integrity opportunity. Epidemiology, hydrology, deforestation, funding gap.

· 13 MIN READ Story

The SaniTap–MadAvance model, company speed, NGO trust

The SaniTap and MadAvance structure is deliberately different from the standard patterns in impact-and-development work. What the model is, what it delivered, and why the pairing works structurally.

· 11 MIN READ