CDP: the business case for measuring your climate impact

CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) is a not-for-profit charity that runs and maintains a global disclosure system allowing investors, companies, cities, and regions to manage their environmental impacts. Since 2000, CDP has seen over 9,600 companies and 800 regions disclose their impact on water security, forests and climate change.

Why is CDP becoming more and more important?

CDP makes a response request annually to your company at the request of your investors, stakeholders, and customers. Responding is an essential first step in reducing your contribution to climate change, becoming a more resilient organisation, and planning any required adaptation.

How does it fit within your other responsibilities and strategy?

TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) reporting is expected to become mandatory for PLCs, financial institutions, and large private companies by 2023 and then across the economy by 2025. Responding to CDP now will put you ahead of the curve regarding environmental disclosure. Further to that, there’s other benefits which could align with your business case that you should consider. Here’s just a few:
  • Protect and improve your company’s reputation by letting your investors, stakeholders and customers know that you are taking action.
  • Boost your competitive advantage by improving your performance on the stock markets, access to new investment and improved tender success.
  • Identify risks and opportunities for your business emerging from environmental changes that would otherwise be overlooked.
  • Track and benchmark your environmental progress against your peers and competitors.
What’s the best way to get started?
Commit to responding!
Each response to CDP is assessed and scored based on the level of progress made towards environmental stewardships. These scores start from D- and end at A. Once assessed, your score is publicly available on CDP’s website for your investors, stakeholders, and customers to evaluate.
What’s particularly key to bear in mind is that non-responders are still listed on CDP’s website and automatically score an F.
Can Energise help?
Our team is well-positioned and experienced with CDP to assist you in responding in the best way. We currently produce CDP responses for a number of FTSE organisations, as well as other large organisations.
We can support you in measuring, formulating and submitting your response, as well as taking the next step and planning to act in areas of most importance. We encourage you to view your score as the baseline we can then build upon together.
For more detailed information, as well as a price breakdown and our offer, you can download your guide to CDP here:
Written By    Kesi Courtman

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