CDP Disclosures

1. Determine your disclosure type: Identify whether you are a company (large or SME), city, state/region, or public authority. This determines which CDP questionnaire version applies to you — Full Corporate, SME, Cities, or States & Regions.

1. Check if you've been requested: Review whether you've received an official request from a CDP Capital Market Signatory or Supply Chain member. If not, you can still disclose as a Self-Selected Company.

1. Register on the CDP Portal: Create an account at cdp.net and access the CDP Portal, where you'll find the current year's questionnaire, reporting guidance, and scoring methodology documentation.

1. Review the questionnaire and frameworks: Download the relevant questionnaire and review alignment mappings to IFRS S2, ESRS E1, GHG Protocol, and TCFD to understand what data you'll need to collect across climate, water, deforestation, and other environmental topics.

1. Collect your environmental data: Gather 12 months of operational data covering emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3), water usage, forest-risk commodity sourcing, governance structures, risk assessments, and targets. Engage internal teams across finance, operations, and procurement.

1. Complete the questionnaire: Submit your responses through the CDP Portal before the annual deadline (typically July for companies). Use CDP's Help Center, technical notes, and guidance documents throughout.

1. Consider third-party verification: Engage a CDP Accredited Solutions Provider to independently verify your submitted data, which can improve your score and credibility with investors and supply chain partners.

1. Receive your score and act on results: CDP analysts will score your response across four levels (D, C, B, A). Use your score and feedback to identify gaps, set improvement targets, and prepare for the next annual cycle.

CDP evaluates organizational responses across four scoring levels — Disclosure (D), Awareness (C), Management (B), and Leadership (A) — with the highest score of A representing best practice environmental stewardship. The scoring methodology is published annually and applied consistently by CDP analysts.

Climate Change questionnaire covers: governance structures for climate-related risks and opportunities; business strategy and scenario analysis aligned with IFRS S2 and TCFD pillars; risk and opportunity identification and financial impact assessment; Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions inventory (aligned with GHG Protocol); emissions reduction targets (including Science Based Targets); energy consumption and mix; and supply chain engagement. This is the most comprehensive and widely completed questionnaire.

Water Security questionnaire assesses: water risk identification and business impact; water consumption and withdrawal by source and quality; water-related governance and strategy; targets and performance against water stewardship goals; and engagement with suppliers and local watersheds.

Forests/Deforestation questionnaire evaluates: exposure to forest-risk commodities (timber, palm oil, soy, cattle, rubber, cocoa, coffee); due diligence and traceability systems; deforestation commitments and progress; supplier engagement; and land use change impacts.

Biodiversity and Plastics modules (introduced in the integrated questionnaire from 2024) assess emerging environmental impact areas including nature-related dependencies and plastic production/waste management.

The SME questionnaire is a simplified version of the full corporate questionnaire, covering the same thematic areas with fewer data points and less granular requirements, making it accessible to smaller organizations without dedicated sustainability teams. Cities and States & Regions questionnaires follow parallel structures adapted for public authorities, aligned with frameworks including the Global Covenant of Mayors, C40, and UNFCCC campaigns.

CDP Disclosures is the dominant global environmental disclosure platform, with over 23,100 companies, cities, states, and regions participating in 2025 — representing approximately two-thirds of global market capitalization across 130+ countries. The program is backed by financial institutions collectively managing a quarter of all global institutional financial assets, giving it unparalleled investor credibility. No competing disclosure framework comes close to CDP's combination of scale, investor backing, and standardized scoring methodology. GRI, TCFD, and ISSB standards are frameworks rather than disclosure platforms, and while EcoVadis and S&P CSA are rating systems, they lack CDP's direct investor-request mechanism and public scoring transparency.

CDP's relevance is accelerating rather than declining, driven by converging regulatory pressures. The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the ISSB's IFRS S2 standard — now adopted or under consideration in jurisdictions representing nearly 60% of global GDP — are substantially aligned with CDP's questionnaire. This means companies already disclosing through CDP are effectively pre-positioned for mandatory regulatory compliance, making CDP participation a strategic hedge against future legal requirements. CDP's 2024 integration of its previously separate climate, water, and forests questionnaires into a single platform further strengthens its position as a one-stop environmental disclosure solution.

Regional adoption is strongest in Europe, Japan, and among large-cap multinationals globally, where investor and regulatory pressure is highest. North American adoption has grown significantly as ESG investor expectations have intensified. Supply chain disclosure is a major growth driver: large companies increasingly require their suppliers — including SMEs — to disclose through CDP as a procurement condition, creating a cascading effect that is expanding the program's reach into mid-market and smaller companies. The introduction of a simplified SME questionnaire has further lowered the barrier to entry for smaller organizations.

CDP (originally the Carbon Disclosure Project) was founded in 2000 in the United Kingdom as a nonprofit initiative to create a standardized mechanism for companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks to institutional investors. It launched its first investor information request in 2002, backed by just 35 institutional investors. The founding premise was that capital markets could not price climate risk without consistent, comparable data — and that investor demand would be the most effective lever to drive corporate disclosure. By the mid-2000s, CDP had become the de facto standard for corporate carbon disclosure, with hundreds of major companies responding annually.

CDP expanded its scope significantly over the following decade. A Water Disclosure program was launched in 2010, followed by a Forests program in 2012, reflecting growing recognition that environmental risk extended beyond carbon to water scarcity and deforestation. CDP also extended its platform to cities (2011) and states and regions, creating a parallel track for subnational governments. In 2013, the organization rebranded from "Carbon Disclosure Project" to simply "CDP" to reflect its broader environmental mandate. A major structural milestone came in 2024 when CDP merged its three separate corporate questionnaires (climate, water, forests) into a single integrated questionnaire, simplifying the disclosure process and enabling a more holistic view of organizational environmental performance. By its 25th year in 2025, CDP had grown from 35 investor backers to financial institutions representing a quarter of all global institutional financial assets, and from a handful of pioneering companies to over 23,100 disclosing entities worldwide.