Your Guide CDP: Why it is important and how to get it right?
Consumers, investors, employees and regulators are getting more savvy about green claims and are questioning what companies say more than ever before. CDP is one of the most credible tools for disclosing your climate and environmental action, providing robust data and insights to investors and customers.
If you have heard more about CDP lately, whether from enterprise customers or institutional investors, this guide is for you.
Here’s everything you need to know about what CDP is, why it matters, how to prepare, and why working with a specialist agency like ENVOLV can make the difference between a submission you are proud of and one that costs you more than it gains.
What is CDP?
CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, is a not-for-profit organisation that runs the global disclosure system for environmental data. It is now the world’s largest environmental disclosure platform, used by over 23,000 companies and more than 1,100 cities worldwide.
It gives companies a structured framework to measure, manage and disclose their environmental performance across three critical areas:
Climate Change: covering greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, climate-related risks and opportunities, net zero targets and transition plans.
Water Security: examining how your business uses, depends on and manages water across its operations and supply chain.
Forests: focused on your exposure to deforestation risk through key commodity supply chains including timber, palm oil, cattle and soy.
Each year, CDP, on behalf of thousands of investors representing trillions in assets and hundreds of major purchasing organisations, invites companies to complete a robust questionnaire online.
At the end of the process, CDP scores each response on a scale from D (disclosure) through C (awareness), B (management) and A (leadership). An A score represents best practice across governance, measurement, management and integration into strategy. There are also plus and minus modifiers within each score band to show where you sit within that level, for example B+ indicates stronger management.
Who is CDP for?
Most businesses wait until they are invited by an investor or major customer before disclosing through CDP.
We do see a benefit in disclosing beyond that, though. CDP aligns with major regulatory reporting frameworks and can be a helpful tool to assess your readiness for compliance. For example, using CDP helps create clarity and structure for TCFD reporting (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures). We also expect it to be helpful alongside the new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, which you can learn more about here.
Why does CDP matter?
There have been some thought leaders using a slight dip in businesses using CDP to scaremonger the end of sustainability commitment. The reality, though, is that the platform had a bumpy couple of years with technical issues. But it is back on track and, realistically, the benefits outweigh the costs.
Failing to disclose could cost you contracts
The CDP supply chain programme is used by 280 major players, from Barclays to Microsoft, Vodafone, Novartis and Tesco. The programme is used by companies committed to decarbonising their supply chains to assess and monitor progress.
We expect to see use of the CDP supply chain programme increase over the coming years as climate events continue to disrupt supply chains. The platform is a useful tool for testing resilience, and as we see more heatwaves, flooding and extreme weather events, resilience testing of critical suppliers will become the norm.
Investors are using CDP
CDP’s investor signatories represent over $130 trillion in assets under management. This includes pension funds, asset managers and institutional investors who are increasingly using environmental data to inform capital allocation decisions. A strong CDP score signals lower risk and more responsible governance. A poor score, or no score at all, can raise red flags.
It builds credibility and trust
In an era when greenwashing is under intense scrutiny and becoming a legal matter, CDP provides a level of rigor and third-party credibility that self-reported sustainability commitments simply cannot match. Disclosing through CDP signals to stakeholders that your environmental claims are backed by data and held to an international standard.
Our guide to anti-greenwashing is worth reading to understand the legal risks this now poses.
It drives better internal decision-making
Completing a CDP questionnaire forces a level of discipline that many organisations find genuinely transformative. The process of gathering data, identifying gaps, developing risk profiles and proving integration into strategy helps to surface future issues and unlock opportunities.
In one client example, gathering climate risks and opportunities identified a new market opportunity they had not fully understood. By analysing the opportunity for CDP and developing a business case for investment, revenue from this under-used market grew by 142% in two years.
Regulatory tailwinds are strengthening
With the new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, incoming CSRD obligations affecting UK businesses with European operations, and the global push toward mandatory climate risk disclosure, CDP provides a solid foundation that increasingly aligns with what regulators will require. Starting now puts you ahead and highlights your business as a sustainability leader.
How to prepare for CDP disclosure
Whether you are responding to CDP for the first time or looking to improve your score, the process benefits enormously from structured preparation. Here’s how to approach it.
Start with a gap analysis
Before you can answer the questionnaire, you need to understand where you stand. Map your existing environmental data, including your greenhouse gas inventory, energy data, water use and governance documentation, against the questionnaire structure to identify gaps.
Create a RAG to help you prioritise focus. We RAG based on score value, accessibility of data and the most significant gaps. With 100 to 200 questions to answer, focusing on key priorities, especially in your first year, is recommended.
Establish your data collection process
CDP requires data that is accurate and consistent. If you want an A score, data is expected to be independently verified. Put systems in place to gather this data reliably and establish clear internal ownership for each data stream.
Our guide on how to measure your carbon footprint will be helpful here.
If you need a carbon reporting platform, we can provide free recommendations and introductions to credible, affordable, proven suppliers.
Engage your board and leadership team
CDP will ask whether climate and environmental issues are discussed at board level, who has oversight and what happens when environmental risks are not managed properly. These are not box-ticking questions; they require genuine executive engagement.
We recommend having a board-level sponsor of climate risk in your business, often the CFO. We also recommend having climate change marked as a regular board agenda item, with frequency depending on the materiality of the risk.
Set credible targets
Companies that score well on CDP are those with specific, time-bound, science-aligned targets. If you have not set targets yet, do so before you respond. Vague commitments score poorly; ambition backed by a credible pathway scores well.
We always recommend using the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) tools for setting targets. Even if you do not go through the verification process, using the tools gives you science-aligned targets. CDP is a founding partner of SBTi.
Understand your Scope 3 emissions
For most organisations, the emissions in their value chain, from the goods they buy and the travel their employees take to the products they sell, dwarf their direct operational emissions. You cannot have a credible response to climate change without accounting for your indirect emissions.
Our guide to Scope 3 reporting will help you get ready and meet the CDP requirement. [LINK]
Draft your response carefully
Every answer in the CDP questionnaire has a scoring implication. Generic or vague answers will score low. Precise, evidence-backed, strategically framed answers will score higher. This is where language and narrative matter enormously. Make sure you read the scoring guidance carefully and use your RAG gap analysis to prioritise high-scoring answers.
Verify your data
While verification is not mandatory for CDP responses, it is required for the highest scores and provides a significant credibility boost. If you are aiming for a high score, plan your verification process well in advance of the submission deadline.
You will need an accredited verifier, and it can take up to three months to complete the process. We have recommended agencies we can introduce you to.
Ensure time for sign-off
Your CDP response should be signed by a member of your Board or an appointed leader. This will take time. It is a large document with 100 to 200 answers. We recommend using an approach that shows consistent year-on-year answers versus new answers. This allows the signatory to spend more time reviewing new disclosures and checking changes thoroughly.
Review and iterate
Once you have submitted, do not file the questionnaire until next year. Use your score report to understand exactly where you lost points and use this to inform your future ESG priorities and roadmap.
It is not about point scoring. It is about building and proving resilience in your business.
The key challenges of CDP disclosure
CDP questionnaires are long, detailed and technical. The Climate Change questionnaire alone can run to more than 100 questions, many of which require quantitative data, governance documentation and strategic narrative.
The most common challenges companies face include:
Data availability and quality
Many organisations discover that they simply do not have systematic processes for collecting the environmental data CDP requires, particularly around Scope 3 emissions, water consumption at site level or supplier data. Having a data methodology in place well in advance is critical.
Governance requirements
CDP asks pointed questions about board-level oversight of climate issues. If your organisation has not formally embedded environmental risk into its governance structures, you will need to address this. We also recommend embedding ESG risk more broadly, because there is not a company on Earth that does not have material ESG risks to manage.
Responding at the right level
CDP’s questions are designed to push organisations toward leadership. Answering truthfully and accurately while positioning your response to reflect your genuine ambition and progress requires both technical knowledge and communication skill. Vague answers and greenwashing stand out very loudly in your disclosure.
Time and internal resource
CDP requires significant coordination across sustainability, finance, operations, procurement, legal and executive teams. It takes both time and expertise. Some companies do not have dedicated resource; others want their team focused on delivering impact rather than disclosures. That is where agency support like ENVOLV is useful.
Keeping up with changes
CDP updates its questionnaires annually, often in response to emerging science, regulatory developments and stakeholder expectations. What scored well last year may not be enough this year. The platform is also evolving, which has been challenging at times.
Why work with ENVOLV
CDP is not an easy undertaking. It requires dedicated resource, expertise and strong internal evidence. ENVOLV provides all of this. We act like an in-house resource, but with external insight.
Proven track record
ENVOLV’s team has guided businesses through CDP submissions across sectors and scoring levels. We know the questionnaire inside out. We know what the scoring methodology rewards and what it penalises. We know where companies consistently stumble and how to avoid those pitfalls before they cost you points.
More than a tick box
CDP is far more valuable than a disclosure exercise. The approach and outputs build, inform and drive strategy. As a critical friend, we can help move the dial faster through influencing, challenging and demonstrating the value to internal stakeholders. We can have conversations that are hard to deliver as an in-house expert.
Your ESG architect
ENVOLV works with you to build the underlying governance, data systems and strategic frameworks that make CDP disclosure meaningful, and that serve your business beyond the questionnaire itself.
This means that rather than scrambling to answer questions you are not ready for, you are walking into the process with confidence.
On tap resource
We know you do not need a full-time, permanent resource. Our support is built to be turned on and off, dialled up and down as you need it. That means delivering the full CDP project or providing advice while your own team delivers the disclosure. We build bespoke support, ideal for you. No package. No fixed costs.
To discuss CDP and what help you might need, contact us.