Why does it matter?
CDP has become the global standard for environmental transparency. Over 740 financial institutions representing more than $142 trillion in assets use CDP data to inform investment decisions. For businesses, disclosing through CDP signals credibility, helps benchmark performance against peers, and increasingly serves as a prerequisite for winning contracts and attracting investment. As mandatory climate disclosure frameworks expand globally, organisations that already report through CDP are significantly better prepared for regulatory compliance.
Key details
How CDP works
CDP operates an annual disclosure cycle. Each year, it sends questionnaires to thousands of companies, requesting detailed information on their greenhouse gas emissions, climate-related risks and opportunities, water use, and deforestation exposure. Companies respond through an online platform, and CDP evaluates and scores each response on a scale from A (leadership) to D- (disclosure), with F indicating a failure to disclose. Companies that do not respond to a request are marked as non-disclosers.
The scoring methodology assesses four levels of environmental stewardship: disclosure (transparency about environmental data), awareness (understanding of environmental issues), management (actions taken to address environmental risks), and leadership (best practice approaches that set an example for others).
Three disclosure programmes
CDP collects data across three core programmes. The climate change programme covers greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, governance, risk management, and emissions reduction targets. Reporting aligns closely with the GHG Protocol and the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The water security programme addresses how organisations use, manage, and are exposed to water-related risks. The forests programme focuses on how organisations manage deforestation risks in commodity supply chains, covering products such as timber, soy, palm oil, and cattle.
The supply chain programme
Beyond direct disclosure, CDP also runs a supply chain programme through which large purchasing organisations (known as CDP supply chain members) request environmental data from their suppliers. This creates a cascading effect: even organisations that are not directly targeted by CDP's investor-backed requests may be asked to disclose by a major customer. This programme now covers over 40,000 suppliers globally.
The A List
Each year, CDP publishes its "A List" of companies that have achieved the highest score in one or more disclosure programmes. Making the A List is widely regarded as a mark of environmental leadership and is frequently cited in corporate communications, investor reports, and tender responses.
CDP and the regulatory landscape
CDP has aligned its disclosure questionnaires with major international frameworks and standards, including the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) standards, the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the TCFD recommendations. This alignment means that organisations disclosing through CDP are simultaneously preparing the data they will need for emerging mandatory reporting requirements.
UK & public sector context
CDP's relevance to UK public procurement is growing. While CDP disclosure is not a formal requirement of UK procurement policy (unlike Carbon Reduction Plans under PPN 006), it is increasingly referenced as a marker of credibility in tenders, particularly for larger contracts and in sectors with significant environmental impact.
The UK government has also used CDP data in its own policy development, and many UK-listed companies are already disclosing through CDP in response to investor expectations. For organisations that supply the public sector and simultaneously serve private sector clients or receive investment, CDP disclosure creates a single evidence base that supports multiple reporting obligations.
Beyond direct procurement relevance, participating in CDP helps organisations build the data infrastructure, governance processes, and emissions measurement capabilities they need to comply with Carbon Reduction Plan requirements and broader ESG reporting expectations.