Since 2000, the CDP has offered companies a standardised environmental reporting framework that enables them to demonstrate the maturity of their environmental strategy. Response to the CDP questionnaire has become widespread: in 2024, more than 22,000 companies responded. The answers provided by companies and the scores awarded by the CDP now make it possible to inform all stakeholders (investors, customers, etc.) about the extent to which environmental issues are taken into account in company strategy.
The main objective of the CDP questionnaire is to promote corporate transparency on their environmental performance, and thus reinforce their responsibility on these issues.
Specifically, the structure of the questionnaire asks respondents to explain :
The structure of the CDP questionnaire makes it possible to report on the way in which the climate issue is taken into account by the company as a whole. The structure is aligned with the recommendations of the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures), which have also been incorporated into the structure of the climate section of the CSRD.
Climate action is stimulated when companies promote sustainable practices by publishing climate information and when all the stakeholders are actively involved in such practices.
The CDP questionnaire begins with two sections on identifying and managing the risks and opportunities associated with climate change.
The next section of the questionnaire looks at the governance of climate issues within the company. It focuses mainly on how the company's Board of Directors and management (in particular the Executive Committee) take climate issues into account.
The CDP expects at least one person on the Board of Directors or in management to be in charge of climate issues, and for the company to explain their respective responsibilities (review or management of climate risks, definition or monitoring of objectives, definition or supervision of a climate strategy, etc.). Certain questions are also related to the financial incentives introduced for the management in relation to the climate issue, as well as the indicators and objectives on which these incentives depend.
The CDP questionnaire also requires publication of the company's GHG balance sheet. This data must be calculated and published according to the GHG Protocol format, i.e. separated into Scope 1, 2 and 3, and according to the 15 categories of Scope 3. This may require an adjustment to the calculation of their carbon footprint for companies using the BEGES methodology.
The CDP also requires that the company's calculates its emissions for its entire organisational and temporal perimeter, as well as for all emission items. Any exclusions must be robustly justified. This applies in particular to Scope 3 categories. The absence of data or the insignificance of a category must be justified by quantified elements.
Finally, the CDP values the verification of carbon footprint data by a third-party organisation. This verification is one of the criteria required for a company to obtain an A rating. The verification must cover Scope 1, Scope 2 and at least one of the Scope 3 categories. For companies that are not already subject to an audit requirement (e.g. of their sustainability report), it is therefore important to plan for external verification of the calculation of their carbon footprint.
This important part of the CDP questionnaire talks about the strategy developed and implemented by the company on the climate issue, as well as the objectives defined.
This section first looks at how the company has used the climate scenarios as part of its climate strategy, and how the identified risks and opportunities influence its financial strategy and planning. These questions make it possible to establish a clear link between the climate risks identified and the way in which the company takes them into account in its operations.
The following questions concern the company's climate strategy, and in particular its transition plan. This must be aligned with a temperature target of 1.5°C, be publicly available, be supervised by the Board of Directors, and be subject to feedback from shareholders (by voting at general meetings, for example). Respondent companies must also detail how they involve all their stakeholders in the climate issue, particularly their suppliers, investors and customers, whether in terms of information gathering, training, or the selection criteria put in place to choose suppliers, for example.
Finally, the CDP questionnaire includes a section on the company's climate objectives. The company must have at least one defined medium-term objective, covering at least Scopes 1 and 2, and which is validated by SBTi or aligned with a temperature of 1.5°C. Targets for Scope 3, as well as long-term targets in line with SBTi's Net Zero Standard, are also highly valued. Finally, the company is expected to demonstrate a reduction in its emissions in line with the expected annual percentage reduction.
In line with its commitment to transparency, the CDP provides respondents with a number of resources to help them understand how to complete the questionnaire correctly and achieve the best possible score.
The key resources provided by the CDP include a detailed guide to answering the questionnaire. For each question, this document provides an explanation of the expected response, as well as a list of the available options and their definitions. The CDP also provides a full guide to the scoring method, setting out the criteria for awarding points for each question. These elements are also included in the response platform. Respondents therefore have direct access to all the information they need to understand how best to answer, and how many points they will be awarded.
It is essential for a company to be familiar with these documents, and to refer to them throughout the questionnaire response phase, especially when responding to the questionnaire for the first time. As the response progresses, it will be possible to identify the questions on which the company will not score the maximum number of points.
To achieve a best score possible by responding to CDP questionnaire, the company also needs to understand the methodology behind scoring.
To begin with, it is important to understand that the CDP questionnaire is graded according to 4 consecutive levels of performance:
The company's response is marked according to each of its 4 levels, and the final mark is awarded as described in the following table:
This scoring method is also used for each question individually, i.e. for a given question, its answer will give the company a certain number of points for Disclosure, Awareness, Management and Leadership.
For the majority of answers, the points in each category are allocated according to the score in the previous category: in other words, if the answer does not obtain all the Disclosure points, it will not be able to obtain any Awareness, Management or Leadership points.
It is therefore essential to ensure that all the criteria for awarding points in each of the categories are met for each question, and not just the Leadership criteria, for example. This is particularly the case for the Disclosure category, which requires the company to complete all the elements requested for each answer. It is therefore important to ensure that no blank elements are left, which could have a serious impact on the final score.
It should also be noted for the Management and Leadership scores that the different sections of the questionnaire are given different weights when calculating the final score for these categories. This means that it will be key for the company to ensure that the questions in the highest-scoring sections are given the right points or are missing points.
It is also important to understand how each question is scored, particularly when it offers several lines of response, for example for risks and opportunities. It is necessary to understand whether the best answer line is scored, or whether an average of all the lines is taken, and thus to ensure that the line chosen for scoring complies as far as possible with the criteria defined.
Finally, in addition to calculating scores for each of the 4 levels of performance, the CDP's scoring methodology includes “Essential criteria” which must be met in full for a score to be awarded. These criteria are defined for the Awareness, Management and Leadership levels, and relate to certain strategic questions in the questionnaire. It is essential to ensure that these criteria are met, because if any of them are not, the company's score will be devalued. A company that achieves a B grade, for example, must ensure that all the Awareness and Management criteria are met in order to validate this grade.
Once the response package has been prepared, it is possible for a company to calculate its provisional score using the scoring methodology provided by the CDP.
To do this, the company must review all of its responses and evaluate the points obtained for each of the 4 categories: Disclosure, Awareness, Management and Leadership.
This comprehensive review will enable the company to assess its score on each of these 4 dimensions, and thus to estimate the score that should be awarded by the CDP. It will also enable the company to identify any questions where points are missing, so that it can define ways of improving its score for the following year (for example, by defining environmental selection criteria for its suppliers, by setting up an external verification of its carbon footprint, etc.).
Finally, to complete the review of the response, it is important to check that all the essential criteria for its score have been met: for a company achieving a B score, it is necessary to check that all the essential Awareness and Management criteria have been met.
ClimateSeed has solutions to support you in your CDP questionnaire response process, helping you to identify gaps on each question, prioritise adjustments and simulate your forecast score. Please contact us for more information.