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SaniTap's first carbon credits are issued, with two integrity labels no cookstove programme has ever held together

76,607 verified emission reductions from the Improved Cooking Madagascar programme are now live on the Gold Standard registry, carrying Gold Standard's Gender Responsive label and the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles label. What the two labels mean, why holding both is rare, and what a buyer can check.

19 October 2026 · SaniTap

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SaniTap's first carbon credits have been issued. Gold Standard has issued 76,607 verified emission reductions, each representing one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent. They are live on the Gold Standard Impact Registry, from our improved cookstove programme around Fort Dauphin, in the Anosy region of Madagascar.

Together with our local partner MadAvance, we delivered over 120,000 stoves to over 90,000 households in just ten months. Every stove and every household is recorded digitally. The work began with people: community meetings, stakeholder consultation, and close work with local and regional authorities. Families now burn less charcoal and wood, and breathe less smoke.

Every Gold Standard project must be gender-sensitive. We went further. Women took paid roles in delivery, and households now save over two and a half hours a day on cooking, time that comes back mostly to women and girls. These are the first cookstove projects on the Gold Standard Impact Registry to carry the Gender Responsive label.

Each issuance also shows eligibility under the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles, the global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits. High impact and high integrity, delivered professionally. We are very proud of it, and of the MadAvance and SaniTap teams who made it happen. Every credit block is public on the registry. Find out more at sanitap.org.

On 19 October 2026, SaniTap’s first carbon credits are live. The Improved Cooking Madagascar programme has issued 76,607 verified emission reductions of 2025 vintage on the Gold Standard registry, from VPAs 3, 5, 6 and 7 of programme GS12600, after independent verification of the first monitoring period covering 90,241 households.

Two labels sit on those credits. One is Gold Standard’s Gender Responsive label. The other is the Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market. These are the first cookstove projects on the Gold Standard Impact Registry to carry the Gender Responsive label, and no cookstove programme has ever held both labels together.

What the Gender Responsive label means

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.

In Madagascar that meant women-led roles in delivery paid under contract, time-use and health indicators disaggregated by gender, and a monitored 2.55 hours a day saved per household on cooking, time that lands mostly with the women who cook. The full distinction is set out in Gender-responsive, not gender-sensitive.

What the CCP label means

The Core Carbon Principles are ten science-based principles for high-quality carbon credits, set by the ICVCM, the market’s independent integrity body. A credit can carry the label only when 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 (TPDDTEC) is CCP-approved, so SaniTap’s issued credits carry the label. Several other cookstove methodologies did not pass the assessment. The principles are explained in ICVCM Core Carbon Principles.

Why holding both is rare

The two labels test different things. 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. Earning both on issued credits requires a programme that is conservative in its accounting and ambitious in its delivery at the same time.

Behind the credits sit the parameters a sceptical buyer looks for: a monitored fraction of non-renewable biomass of 54% for Madagascar’s east coast, so only 54% of the biomass avoided is counted; independent sensor monitoring on a random sample of households, so usage is measured rather than reported; and the full project file available to any assessor before a review begins.

What a buyer can check

The projects, their status and their documents, on the Gold Standard registry.
The programme and methodology assessments on the ICVCM assessment status page.
The verified parameters in our technical summary for third-party assessors.
The impact figures and the dates they apply to on Our Impact.

What comes next

The 2026 vintage of the cooking programme is due for issuance in early 2027. The safe-water projects (VPA GS12601) follow on the same programme. The projects remain on the path to CORSIA eligibility: the Government of Madagascar has issued a Letter of Approbation, and Article 6 host-country authorisation is being progressed; no credit is CORSIA-labelled until the registry says so. Of the first issuance, 25,000 credits have already been sold.

The people who made the credits possible are in Madagascar: MadAvance’s field teams of over 80 staff, the technicians, the community water guardians and the households that changed how they cook. The carbon revenue now funds the maintenance and the monitoring that keep that change in place.

To buy or reserve credits, see Buy Credits or talk to our commercial team.

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