By Julia Keogh (Consultant) & Sasha Hagan (Consultant), CDP Subject Matter Experts at Sustainserv
From Adapting to Advancing
In 2024, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) released a revised reporting framework for corporations to disclose their climate and energy related strategies and metrics. These revisions posed challenges for many companies, who not only had to adapt to a changed questionnaire that required new disclosures but also adjust their well-honed answers to the newly formulated questions asked by CDP.
Over the years, companies have tuned their CDP reporting development process and aligned their understanding of the scoring rubric to continually optimize their scores year over year. The new reporting modifications left some companies struggling to adapt to the new requirements, further compounded by the limited visibility into the new scoring rubrics.
Now in 2025, with the new system in place for a full year and confirmation that there are limited module changes in CDP’s most recently posted 2025 resources, the focus will shift to how companies can improve their scores once again.
Tips for Analyzing Your 2024 Score
CDP’s limited initial feedback to respondent companies on their most recent scores left many puzzled as to what the scoring criteria was. While experienced reporters are able to rely on their experience, best practices and the available guidance documentation to make improvements – less experienced reporters are still adjusting to the new framework and its requirements.
To understand how CDP arrived at its score, you must identify the overall weight of the category in scoring, as outlined in the scoring documentation provided by CDP, along with any new information available here. Looking at where you scored well and where you didn’t, together with the weights of the different categories, will help you decipher your overall score and point you towards where you can make improvements. To do that:
• Consider creating a structured Excel sheet outlining the categories and their respective scores, and weightings. Aligning letter scores with the highest-weighted categories will offer valuable insight into the factors that have advanced or hindered your company’s performance.
• Focus your improvement efforts on those categories that are weighted most highly and/or bring value to other sustainability related reporting and programmatic efforts in your organization.
• Read the questions carefully. How they are worded, and the proof points they are seeking are quite specific. When assessing your score (and crafting answers to questions), be careful to address the exact points the question is asking, which can make or break your score.
Strategies for Improvement
Below, one can find tangible examples of actions companies can take to improve their CDP score, with the added benefit of demonstrating ongoing commitment to sustainability improvements, and aligning with evolving regulatory requirements. These examples, which consider the weighting of the various categories of responses as well as the utility of the content both for CDP and other purposes, include:
• Conduct a climate risk assessment to improve your CDP score by identifying the climate-related risks and opportunities your company faces, along with the actual or potential financial impacts these risks or opportunities represent. This will enhance transparency by demonstrating how you address climate-related challenges and how they align with your business strategy. This proactive approach to sustainability and risk management will boost your CDP score and support compliance with the constantly evolving regulatory landscapes in the United States and Europe.
• Invest in the education of board members on climate related issues. By Highlighting the ESG drivers behind strategic priorities can, over time, enhance board-level competency on environmental issues. These efforts can range from professional certificate programs for board members, to educational seminar sessions that occur during regularly scheduled board meetings.
• Leveraging investments in compliance with reporting frameworks such as ESRS, CDP, and TCFD, as well as goal setting protocols such as SBTi not only supports regulatory compliance but also enhances their CDP scores. This integrated approach leads to a more robust and strategic sustainability framework, as well as an enhanced CDP score.
Moving Forward
Last year marked a baseline reset for many companies regarding their CDP disclosures –with new disclosures, refined scoring, and framework alignment.
Some companies took the opportunity to use the new questionnaire set up to take deeper inventory ontheir approaches to responses of what new programs, policies, or infrastructures would need to be put in place to fulfill CDPs data requirements and best industry-specific practices. For example, CDP is drawing attention to disclosures for topics such as:
Biodiversity & Plastics: While these categories weren’t scored this past year, the current framework will help guide companies to understand what types of information they should be thinking about.Biodiversity and plastics are evolving topic areas, and proactively enhancing transparency can help safeguard companies against future requirements. It is important to note that it has been confirmed by CDP that these modules will remain unscored in 2025.
Science-Based Targets for Nature (SBTN): CDP is also asking companies to expand their disclosures to include corporate environmental strategies that align nature and biodiversity disclosures with climate and sustainability goals. How much weight this will carry and how relevant it is for companies to implement remains unclear at this point. However, it can serve as a guide for setting targets for nature protection and restoration while understanding the interconnections between biodiversity, climate, and other environmental factors.
In 2025, with an updated, benchmarkable process in place, companies will have the tools to track their progress more effectively, set clearer sustainability goals, and demonstrate measurable progressions in their climate and environmental efforts. This will ensure they stay competitive and aligned with developing industry standards, while continuous improvement will be key to advancing sustainability practices and meeting the evolving expectations of stakeholders.
For any Score Review, Gap Assessment, or CDP Report Development needs, please do not hesitate to contact our Sustainserv CDP Team. We look forward to helping our clients drive continuous improvement and achieve their strategic and disclosure goals.
Key Resources:
CDP Climate Change Scoring Essential Criteria 2024
CDP’s Alignment with Disclosure Frameworks and Standards
CDP_2025_Corporate_Disclosure_ENG.pdf
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