Reflections on CDP Performance in 2025: Insights from a Gold Accredited Partner

With 2025 being the third hottest year on record, this year emerged as a defining moment for environmental transparency and corporate climate action. Around the world, companies faced intensifying expectations from regulators, investors, customers, and communities. This was evident in the unprecedented pressure for disclosure: 640 investors controlling US$127 trillion in assets called on companies to report through CDP, while more than 270 major buyers requested environmental data from approximately 45,000 suppliers. Such demand illustrates how environmental data has shifted from being a “nice to have” to an essential part of how markets evaluate risk and opportunity.

At the same time, CDP saw over 22,100 companies disclosing environmental data in 2025, representing more than half of global market capitalization – a clear sign that environmental governance is integral to global economic systems. This scale matters. It reflects not only rising expectations for climate transparency, but also a collective recognition that credible climate data has become essential to how businesses and markets make decisions.

In 2025, SE Advisory Services partnered with more than 150 organizations to advance their CDP disclosures, strengthen their climate performance, and improve their scores through sustained collaboration. In 2026, as a renewed CDP Gold Accredited Solutions Provider, we are committed to creating even greater impact by helping companies further elevate their CDP performance.

Insights From Our Clients

For our clients, and among companies disclosing more broadly, the motivations for reporting to CDP tend to follow a clear pattern. For some, CDP remains a voluntary commitment to transparency and good governance; for others, disclosure is driven by investor requests, supply-chain pressure, or the need to stay ahead of evolving regulatory expectations. Regardless of the initial driver, companies consistently benefit from the process. CDP provides a recognized framework to assess environmental performance, identify gaps, strengthen climate governance, and build trust with stakeholders.

These benefits were clearly reflected in our client outcomes in 2025. We supported 240 CDP responses in 2025, with 130+ client questionnaires supported for two years or more. This continuity matters: it enables companies to move beyond one-off disclosures and focus on year-on-year performance improvement.

Encouragingly, performance improvements were tangible. 84% of our clients’ submissions across climate, water, and forests achieved scores in the A to B- range, and 41% of the climate responses we supported earned leadership (A or A-) scores. Perhaps most tellingly, 71% of companies that were previously rated D or C improved to B or above, underscoring the value of structured support, clearer expectations, and sustained internal ownership of CDP disclosures.

At the same time, the broader CDP landscape continues to evolve. With climate action more urgent than ever, the limits of business-as-usual are increasingly evident, and CDP is tightening its essential criteria each year to reflect what credible climate leadership requires. We are encouraged to see more Triple A companies than ever before – a signal that organizations are beginning to recognize that climate challenges cannot be addressed in isolation, but must be tackled holistically across climate, water, and forests.

Despite this progress, meeting the A-level essential criteria remains difficult for many. For climate, the most challenging requirements include developing a publicly available 1.5°C‑aligned transition plan, maintaining a complete emissions inventory with no material exclusions, securing third‑party verification of 100% of Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and achieving third‑party verification of at least 70% of at least one Scope 3 category.

In addition, companies must set an organization‑wide Scope 1 and 2 reduction target that is either validated by the Science Based Targets initiative or fully aligned with a 1.5°C pathway, representing at least a 4.2% absolute annual reduction. These expectations reflect the rising bar for credible climate action, and the growing recognition that only ambitious, well‑governed, science‑aligned strategies can deliver the environmental outcomes the world now urgently needs.

What Drove Results and Key Lessons

After implementing a number of reforms to the disclosure framework in 2024 – such as introducing the integrated questionnaire, moving to a new disclosure platform, and aligning many data points with other reporting standards and frameworks, thereby changing many existing questions and introducing several new ones – 2025 was a year of stability for CDP, with no changes to the technology platform, the questionnaire, or the scoring methodology. As a result, 2025 was a relatively comfortable year for disclosing companies, however, the following factors proved to be equally important for performing well in 2025.

1. Integrated data systems and robust reporting processes are perhaps the most fundamental success factors. Disclosing complete, consistent, and accurate information is critical for achieving a strong CDP score. When organizations centralize their environmental, operational, and financial datasets across business units and geographies, they are able to reduce data gaps, avoid inconsistencies, and streamline internal data validation.
2. High performers aligned their relevant internal stakeholders early, well before the CDP response window opened in June, bringing sustainability, risk, finance, operations, and governance teams together to coordinate responsibilities and expectations. This is especially important when new data points – or whole new modules – are introduced to the questionnaire.
3. Strong governance similarly proved decisive. Companies with board-level oversight and clear accountability structures were better positioned to demonstrate maturity in sustainability. Climate change – and, indeed, all environmental issues – must be core considerations within companies’ governance systems and decision-making processes to succeed in CDP, as illustrated by many of the governance-related essential criteria.
4. CDP has arguably become the gold standard for environmental reporting, engaging hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide to disclose their environmental impacts. This scale of participation reflects the trust the global community places in the relevance of CDP’s scoring methodology. Therefore, it is crucial to understand that the scoring requirements are best used as a management tool rather than simply a reporting checklist. The most successful companies align their activities, targets, and investment decisions with the structure of CDP – using the scoring logic as a roadmap for continuous improvement. This approach not only improves scores but also strengthens organizations’ underlying climate strategies and overall business resilience.
5. As noted above, achieving an A score in CDP’s Climate Change questionnaire requires a 1.5 °C-aligned climate transition plan. While the definition of a climate transition plan can be interpreted in different ways depending on the context, it generally refers to a credible, detailed roadmap that sets out how a company will transform its business model, operations, and value chain to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris Agreement. Many of our A-List clients began developing their transition plans several years ago, enabling them to achieve CDP Climate Leader status in 2025. Companies with similar ambitions must likewise embark on this journey, supporting their transition plans with robust targets, clear milestones, and well-defined strategic and financial considerations.

These success factors were clearly reflected in our own client outcomes. High levels of client satisfaction were driven by our integrated support model, which combines climate science expertise, ESG reporting capabilities, decarbonization planning, and deep familiarity with CDP’s scoring mechanics. This holistic approach enabled clients to move beyond compliance, embedding environmental performance into core business strategy and decision-making.

Looking Ahead

As we look to the 2026 cycle, several developments are already on the horizon. CDP has signaled strengthened alignment with other major reporting frameworks, including a trend toward integrating climate, nature, and broader sustainability disclosures. While 2025 saw minimal changes to the questionnaire and a stable scoring methodology, CDP emphasized the importance of clarity and consistency, suggesting this trajectory will continue. Reporting guidance is anticipated to be reorganized for improved readability, addressing user feedback from the 2025 cycle, when companies had to navigate scattered updates and version-control documents.

CDP has confirmed that it will introduce a new module, Oceans, which will be unscored in 2026. Biodiversity and Plastics are also expected to remain unscored. Furthermore, the disclosure platform itself is expected to continue to evolve. While specifics remain unconfirmed, 2025 saw a more stable and predictable portal experience, and 2026 is likely to incorporate AI-enabled tools to support data quality and reduce reporting burdens. These enhancements reflect the platform’s increasing scale and the need for more intelligent systems to handle the volume and complexity of global environmental data.

For SE Advisory Services, the year ahead represents another opportunity to help our clients transform transparency into meaningful impact. With deep expertise, global implementation capabilities, and a commitment to practical, action-oriented support, we are ready to guide organizations through the next cycle – helping them strengthen resilience, accelerate decarbonization, and lead confidently in a world where environmental performance is inseparable from business performance.

To earn your best score in 2026, get in touch to see how SE Advisory Services’ experts can provide guidance, insights and feedback on improving your response.