CDP is where your investors read your climate story back to you.
A bad questionnaire response is a public C. A blank one is an F.
Runs on your public disclosures. Nothing from you.
You are the Head of Sustainability at a listed company with institutional investors. The CDP portal opens next month. Last year the score was C. This year it needs to be B or better.
CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) runs the world's largest voluntary corporate environmental disclosure. Every year, companies respond to the CDP Climate Change, Water Security, and Forests questionnaires. CDP scores every response from A (leadership) down to F (failure to disclose). The score is public, indexed by investors representing more than USD 130 trillion in assets, and used inside supplier questionnaires by CDP-member buyers.
What CDP actually is
The Climate Change questionnaire runs ~80 questions across governance, risk and opportunity management, business strategy, targets, and Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions. Every answer is scored on disclosure, awareness, management, and leadership.
CDP-graded scores are the most-used ESG shorthand in the market. Investors ask "what is your CDP score" before they open the sustainability report. A move from C to B is a visible, dated event.
CDP re-aligned the questionnaire to ISSB (IFRS S2) for 2024 onward, so the answers you build for CDP now feed straight into ISSB disclosure. Same data, two disclosure vehicles.
Why now
The CDP questionnaire opens in April every year and closes in late July. Late submissions are not scored. If Scope 3 evidence is not ready before April, the year is lost.
What breaks when your carbon number is not defensible.
Three failure modes we see on every CDP scan.
Scope 3 categories with "not calculated"
Every "not calculated" answer costs disclosure points. Enough of them push the whole response down a band.
Targets without base year and boundary
A target the questionnaire asks for that the company cannot document. Marked as unverifiable.
Risk answers written by comms, not risk
Vague answers on physical and transition risk read as boilerplate. The scoring model flags them.
Three moves that make CDP defensible.
Scope 3 built to CDP shape
Carbon-OS delivers a full 15-category Scope 3 screen and lets you show workings per category. No blanks.
Every claim carries evidence
CDP scoring rewards evidence. Every number in Carbon-OS has a source, a method, and a date attached.
Answers pre-mapped to ISSB
The CDP questionnaire and ISSB S2 share fields. Build once. File both.
See where your CDP number stands. Free scan.
Run the free Carbon X-Ray →What people ask, straight.
Is CDP mandatory?
No. CDP is voluntary. It becomes effectively required when your top three institutional investors are CDP signatories and ask you to respond.
What does an A score require?
Leadership-band scoring on almost every question, plus a validated SBTi target, plus a full 15-category Scope 3 disclosure, plus climate risk integrated into strategy and financial planning.
How does CDP score work?
Each response is graded on four levels: Disclosure (D), Awareness (C), Management (B), and Leadership (A), with plus and minus bands. F means the company did not disclose.
When does the questionnaire open and close?
The main Climate Change questionnaire opens in mid-April and closes in late July. Dates shift by a week or two year to year. CDP publishes the calendar in January.
Do we need CDP if we already file BRSR Core?
Different audiences. BRSR Core is regulatory disclosure in India. CDP is investor-facing global disclosure. Institutional investors read CDP first.