Our Question Bank

In 2024, CDP rolled out a new multi-environmental issue format for the full corporate questionnaire, combining all three existing questionnaires across climate change, forests, and water security into one questionnaire.

Addressing the climate crisis cannot be achieved without simultaneously addressing the nature crisis. Carbon emissions and climate change are only part of the challenge. At least US$44 trillion in economic value is generated through the exploitation of natural resources every year while losses to nature continue at unprecedented rates.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) agree that climate and nature must be addressed simultaneously and in an equitable way. This includes conserving, protecting, and restoring ecosystems, adopting more sustainable agricultural and forestry practices, and pursuing a circular economy. In this context, it is more important than ever to accelerate corporate action on deforestation and water security, and to act on the full range of environmental issues. CDP’s move to an integrated questionnaire enables our stakeholders to better assess all environmental impacts in their direct operational activity, value chain, and financial decisions. We have also integrated new data points to encourage companies to address the interconnectivity of these issues.

The multi-environmental issue questionnaire offers disclosers an improved interface and a more intuitive workflow. The questionnaire encourages a shift towards holistic environmental management and prepares disclosers to better respond to market and regulator demands.

An integrated questionnaire also enables us to meet our strategic goals of expanding across environmental issues like biodiversity, plastics, and land more systematically and without replicating governance and strategy questions. We started expanding to a wider coverage of environmental issues with the introduction of biodiversity in 2022, and plastics in 2023. In the future, stakeholders should expect to see a further expanded coverage of environmental issues.

As part of our new, streamlined full corporate questionnaire in 2024, we shifted the focus on risks and opportunities to include the assessment of environmental impacts and dependencies.

Also, disclosers in 2024 were required to demonstrate visibility and knowledge of the entities they have control over, as well as across their value chain. Additionally, under Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) guidance, responding organizations should identify priority locations for forests, water, and biodiversity.

You can read more about the key changes to corporate disclosure in 2024 (Part 1 and Part 2).

In April 2024, CDP rolled out a dedicated SME corporate questionnaire (also known as the CDP SME questionnaire). The questions in this questionnaire are aligned to the full corporate questionnaire, but with fewer data points, simplified question formats, and enhanced guidance to ease SMEs’ reporting burden.

This questionnaire replaced the previous minimum version corporate questionnaire and the pilot private markets SME questionnaire. The SME corporate questionnaire builds on our collaboration with the SME Climate Hub and the SME Climate Disclosure Framework, as well as our pilot private markets 2023 SME questionnaire.

Note, in 2024, the SME questionnaire focused on climate change, and didn’t include sector-specific questions or data points. We intend to expand to other environmental topics in the future. Until then, we have included integrated forests and water security data points to kickstart disclosure journey for these themes.

The eligibility threshold and questionnaire are structured to provide the flexibility to meet SMEs at their current maturity level. This makes it easier to understand where they should focus their attention while being challenging enough to build knowledge and drive actionable steps. The questionnaire incentivizes SMEs to engage in disclosure and start taking action, recognizing that disclosure is an important first step in an organization’s environmental journey. Guidance is available to support SMEs in navigating the ecosystem of resources and best practice.

Companies, cities, states and regions disclose their environmental information through the CDP Portal.   

Each organization or entity can have several user types, with the Disclosure Submission Lead being the key contact point for CDP (formerly known as “Main User”). The ‘Disclosure Submission Lead’ has control access rights and can add or remove users to an organization. They are responsible for submitting their entity’s response and paying the admin fee.  

Learn more about how to disclose including the key dates in the disclosure cycle.   

You can also read more about specific steps in the disclosure process by visiting the Help Center.

Companies disclose data on the impact their business activities have on environmental issues or themes such as climate change, deforestation and water security. Companies can do this through CDP's streamlined corporate questionnaire or SME questionnaire, depending on which is most relevant to them. Disclosing companies only see questions relevant to the issues they have been requested to disclose on, and can respond across multiple issues in a single place. Questionnaires are made up of modules such as:

• Governance;

• Business Strategy; and

• Environmental Performance.

Some modules are sector-specific, some are issue-specific, and some are integrated, or multi-issue. If a Self Selected Company (SSC) meets the eligibility for the SME questionnaire based on the revenue and headcount they enter in the questionnaire setup, they can choose between the SME and full corporate questionnaire. SSCs can also select whether they intend to disclose on forests and/or water in the questionnaire setup.

CDP provides a variety of materials to help companies, cities, states and regions throughout disclosure.

The CDP Portal contains the latest:

• Questionnaires;

• Scoring methodologies, which outline the number of points available for each question; and

• Reporting guidance for each questionnaire to provide clarity around questions, terminology and requirements.

Additionally, you can:

• Browse upcoming events and past webinars to support you in reporting;

• Learn more about our Reporter Services program, to receive in-depth disclosure support on a one-to-one basis*; and

• Find an Accredited Solutions Provider (ASP) for external support on your environmental initiatives.*

*Companies only.

All companies are asked to respond to climate change questions.

All companies responding to the full corporate questionnaire are asked supplementary questions on plastics and biodiversity. Companies are only asked to respond to forests and water datapoints if at least one of the following conditions is met for forests and/or water security respectively:

• Request: you have been asked to disclose by a requester (eg a Capital Markets Signatory, Supply Chain member, Banks program member etc.).

• Industry impact classification: the environmental impact of your CDP Activity Classification System (CDP-ACS) activities on forests and/or water, as established by the CDP industry impact classification. Note, this is not applicable to organizations responding to the SME questionnaire.

• Self-assessment: based on whether you have indicated that you have identified substantive forests- and/or water-related issues in your questionnaire setup. Note, this is not applicable to organizations responding to the SME questionnaire.

• Opt-in: if none of the above conditions are met but your organization chooses to disclose on forests and/or water security.

Please note that organizations that have received the CDP Letter to the Board can review their initial assessment of environmental issues they are requested to disclose on – please note, this initial environmental issue assignment is subject to change. Further details on thresholds determining whether an organization is requested to respond to forests and/or water security questions can be found in the Industry Impact Classification methodology. Additionally, if you have been requested to disclose by a Supply Chain member, Banks program member or Private Markets program member, your requester may request you to respond to a specific environmental issue. Organizations are welcome to volunteer to disclose on environmental issues, whether they have been requested to do so or not. The streamlined corporate questionnaire doesn’t mean that all companies have to answer datapoints on all environmental issues. Questions on water and forests will continue to be presented to companies based on how relevant these issues are to their business and activities. The relevance of these questions is assessed using the CDP-ACS methodology, following the same process CDP has used to determine requests to large public companies for the last decade.