Organising project evidence before validation

Most delays in validation are not caused by weak projects. They come from evidence that is hard to find, out of date, or inconsistent between documents. A little structure before drafting saves weeks of back-and-forth later.

Start from the questions, not the folders

Group evidence by the question it answers in the filing rather than by who produced it. A validator asks where the boundary is defined, not which consultant sent which file.

• Scope: boundary files, maps, land tenure and rights.
• Baseline: surveys, historical land use, baseline studies.
• Additionality: financial models, benchmarks, barrier evidence.
• Quantification: inventories, measurements, parameter sources.
• Monitoring: procedures, equipment records, data management.
• People: stakeholder consultation records and safeguards.

Keep one current version

Name files so the latest version is obvious, and archive superseded drafts rather than leaving them alongside. When two versions of an inventory exist, someone will eventually cite the wrong one.

Prefer source formats

Keep boundaries as KML or KMZ rather than screenshots of maps, and inventories as spreadsheets rather than PDFs of tables. Source formats can be checked and recalculated; images cannot.

Record where each number comes from

For every figure that appears in the filing, note the document and page it comes from. This is the single habit that most shortens validation, because it turns a validator's question into a lookup.