CDP runs the world's largest environmental disclosure system. Tens of thousands of companies report through it each year — not voluntarily in any loose sense, but because their investors and their largest customers request it. In its biggest change in years, CDP consolidated its previously separate climate, water and forests questionnaires into a single integrated questionnaire, delivered on a new online platform and aligned to the IFRS S2 / TCFD disclosure structure and the EU's ESRS.
What CDP is
CDP (historically the Carbon Disclosure Project) is a not-for-profit that runs a standardised environmental disclosure system on behalf of investors and corporate buyers. Companies respond to a structured questionnaire; CDP scores the responses; and those scores are visible to the investors and customers who requested disclosure. That visibility is the point — a CDP score is simultaneously a disclosure, a rating, and a procurement document.
The unified questionnaire
- One combined questionnaire now spans climate change, water security and forests (with further environmental themes building in), rather than three separate submissions.
- It is delivered through a new online response platform, replacing the older response system.
- Its structure is aligned to IFRS S2 and the TCFD pillars — governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets — and mapped to ESRS, so a single environmental data backbone can feed multiple regimes.
How scoring works
CDP scores on an A to D scale (with intermediate grades such as A-, B and so on), reflecting four ascending levels of maturity: Disclosure (D), Awareness (C), Management (B) and Leadership (A). Higher bands demand more: Leadership-level scores typically require third-party-verified emissions data, science-based targets, and demonstrable best-practice processes, assessed against sector-relevant criteria. A blank or thin response sits at the bottom; a complete, well-governed, verified one reaches the top.
Why it matters commercially
Investors screen portfolios on CDP scores. Through the CDP Supply Chain programme, major buyers request disclosure from their suppliers and factor the results into procurement. The score you earn is published back to the people who asked for it — so a C or D sits in a procurement file next to competitors' As and Bs. For most supply-chain programmes, the Management band (B) is the practical credibility threshold.
How to score well
- Establish clear board-level governance of climate, and document it.
- Run a genuine climate risk and opportunity process, not a narrative.
- Report verified Scope 1, 2 and material Scope 3 emissions.
- Have credible, ideally science-based, targets in place before the questionnaire window.
- Build the content once against the IFRS S2 / TCFD backbone, so CDP, IFRS S2 and ESRS draw on the same evidence.
- Start early — the score-improving work (governance, verification, targets) must exist before the submission window opens, which means starting two to three quarters ahead.
The relationship to other frameworks
Because the questionnaire is now aligned to IFRS S2 and ESRS, CDP is best treated not as a standalone chore but as one output of a single, governed sustainability-data system. Build that system once and CDP becomes a view onto it — which is also the cheapest way to keep scoring well year after year.
Sources & further reading
This article is general information, not legal, financial or compliance advice. The regulations and standards referenced here evolve; verify the current position with the issuing body, or ask us. Published June 2026.