CDP has two common meanings. For sustainability teams, it is the environmental disclosure organization formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. For marketers, a customer data platform is software that connects customer information across systems. The shared acronym can make search results confusing, especially when you are trying to understand a customer’s reporting request.
If a buyer asks your company to disclose emissions, environmental risks, or water use through CDP, they mean environmental disclosure. Your next step is to understand the request, identify the information needed, and assign responsibility for the response. Here is how both meanings work and why environmental CDP matters for your business.
What is CDP in sustainability?
CDP is a global nonprofit that operates an environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states, and regions. Formerly called the Carbon Disclosure Project, it now covers environmental issues beyond carbon, including forests and water security. Its purpose is to make environmental information available for decisions by businesses, investors, and other stakeholders.
Companies disclose through questionnaires that ask about their environmental impacts and how they manage them. Rather than relying on a broad statement about sustainability, a response provides structured information about oversight, risks, targets, and performance.
For a sustainability or compliance lead, this creates a practical assignment: coordinate information from across the business and explain it accurately. The disclosure should reflect what your organization measures and does, with evidence that supports the response.
Why environmental CDP matters to companies
Respond to supply chain requests
Customers can request disclosure through CDP’s Supply Chain program. This gives purchasing organizations a way to collect information from suppliers and understand environmental issues across their value chains.
If your company receives a request, clarify what the customer expects. Do they need a submitted response, specific emissions information, or progress toward a stated score? These are different assignments. Ask the customer directly rather than assuming every request carries a minimum score requirement.
Support risk management
Environmental disclosure can help organize information for risk management. CDP describes its data as supporting decisions about environmental risk and supply chain resilience.
Use the reporting process to ask practical questions: Which risks have you assessed? Who reviews them? What actions are underway? Where is supporting evidence stored? These questions give the internal team a clearer basis for reviewing its environmental program.
Explain environmental performance
Structured disclosure gives stakeholders a common format for reviewing environmental performance. It also gives your team a reason to reconcile figures, document methods, and explain changes between reporting periods.
Treat a score as one input. Consider the underlying response, reporting boundary, and actual results when evaluating performance. A stronger disclosure is useful, but improvements in reporting and reductions in environmental impact are distinct outcomes.
What does a CDP questionnaire cover?
The full corporate questionnaire integrates environmental topics. In 2026, climate change, forests, and water security are the three scored issue areas. Biodiversity, plastics, and ocean questions are not scored in that questionnaire. Applicable questions depend on the organization and its disclosure setup.
Climate information includes greenhouse gas emissions and the processes used to manage climate-related issues. Forests disclosure addresses issues associated with forest-risk commodities and deforestation. Water security disclosure addresses water-related impacts and management.
Start with the questionnaire your organization receives. Identify the reporting period and boundary before gathering figures. Then create an evidence checklist for the applicable questions. This helps prevent different departments from answering with inconsistent dates, entities, or definitions.
How do CDP scores work?
For the full corporate questionnaire, CDP uses four scoring levels: disclosure, awareness, management, and leadership. Letter grades broadly correspond to D/D−, C/C−, B/B−, and A/A−. Essential criteria can constrain the score an organization achieves.
Disclosure evaluates the information reported. Higher levels assess understanding of environmental issues, management action, and leadership practices. The methodology varies by environmental issue and can include sector-specific requirements.
Use the current scoring methodology to identify gaps before submission. An unanswered question, an unsupported claim, and an absent management process need different fixes. More polished wording cannot substitute for an action your company has not taken.
Confirm the rules for your questionnaire and cycle. Do not assume that last year’s responses or scoring criteria remain sufficient.
How to prepare for environmental CDP disclosure
First, confirm portal access and review the request. CDP’s onboarding process includes confirming a Submission Lead and setting up the questionnaire. The Submission Lead is responsible for submitting the final response.
Next, assign internal owners. Finance may hold utility and expenditure records, operations may hold site information, and procurement may hold supplier records. Specify what each owner needs to provide and when.
Keep calculations and evidence together. Record the sources, assumptions, and reporting period for each figure. Review answers for consistency before approval, particularly where a narrative refers to emissions totals or targets reported elsewhere.
Finally, retain a record of the submission and improvement priorities. Use it to plan the next cycle rather than restarting the evidence search each year.
Get the right support for your CDP request
If your request concerns environmental disclosure, start by confirming the customer’s expectations and your internal capacity. Greenplaces provides managed CDP climate, water, and forest disclosure support, including questionnaire preparation, evidence development, response structuring, and submission support.
Talk with Greenplaces about the request you received and the work needed to prepare a supported response.