In 2024, CDP rolled out its new integrated format for the full corporate questionnaire that combined all three existing questionnaires across climate, forests, and water security into one. With this new format came many structural changes, increased alignment to global frameworks, a new disclosure platform and essential criteria introduced at different scoring levels. Companies had to grapple with significant changes. As we look ahead to 2025, now is good time to review gaps identified and lessons learnt from the previous cycle. Our CDP expert, Caoimhe Costigan explains what you can do now to improve your CDP score for 2025.
In a dynamic sustainability landscape, organisations must be prepared to adapt to change, proactively identify and address gaps in their sustainability efforts, respond to risks and opportunities and navigate emerging regulations. One essential tool for achieving these goals is a robust CDP response. In this blog, we explain why getting a head start is crucial to success, what the most common gaps are, and how to improve your score for next year. As we approach 2025, CDP’s focus is expected to further align with global regulations, investor expectations and keep raising the bar in terms of what is considered best-practice and Leadership status. Here’s what to expect from CDP in 2025 and how best to prepare.
CDP is more than just a compliance requirement. It’s a strategic initiative that helps companies understand their holistic impact and mitigate risks due to climate change, deforestation, water security, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss. By disclosing and thereby understanding where the gaps are, CDP helps companies make informed decisions and build robust climate and nature strategies. Preparing early allows you to thoroughly assess your current CDP response, identify gaps in your data collection and reporting processes, and improve data accuracy and completeness. Addressing these gaps early on ensures that your sustainability reports are credible and can withstand scrutiny from investors, customers, and regulators.
In terms of CDP’s sustainability themes and criteria, one of the most common gaps identified from 2024’s response is the lack of credible and publicly available climate transition plans. 2024 saw an introduction of more stringent essential criteria across scoring levels, including the requirement for credible transition plans, which is an important evolution in strategic sustainability planning and will require clear accountability mechanisms to track progress. Climate transition plans are a vital tool to demonstrate that a company is not only committed to achieving a 1.5-degree pathway transition but can demonstrate how it plans to transition and maintain the relevancy of its business model in a net-zero economy. Organisations that continually disclose to CDP are more likely to provide sufficient details of their climate transition plans and be more prepared for questions from investors, customers and other key stakeholders, while also preparing for upcoming regulation. The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) is a UK government initiative that aims to create a global standard for climate transition plans and influence regulations and is designed to complement the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 and S2. The UK government and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are currently consulting on when to establish mandatory disclosure, with IFRS mandatory disclosure coming into force in 2025. Click here to read SE Advisory Services’s recent whitepaper on transition planning and transformation and watch our webinar on how CDP can prepare you for transition planning and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) compliance.
Climate-related transition and physical risks are increasing and there is an increased need for organisations to have processes in place for identifying, assessing, and managing environmental risks and opportunities. Aligning to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will enable companies to be aware, prepare for and reduce the climate related risk to the business.
An emerging theme of the 2024 questionnaire, in line with CDP’s increased alignment with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), is the concept of dependencies. These are aspects of environmental assets and ecosystem services that an organization relies on to function and impacts (changes in the condition of nature, quality or quantity, which may result in changes to the capacity of nature to provide social and economic functions). CDP’s ambition is for organisations to have processes in place to identify, assess, and manage environmental dependencies and impacts, across its direct operations and value chain, to effectively respond to increasing uncertainties across varying time horizons.
Another key gap identified in current strategies, is the lack of robust climate-scenario analysis (CSA). CSAs are a key recommendation of the TCFD, the IFRS S2 and transition plans. They act as a strategic tool to enable an organisation to integrate planning for possible climate futures into their business strategy, risk management processes and financial planning.
Transition plans need to be 1.5-degree aligned, which demonstrates the importance of setting near-term and long-term (net-zero) science-based targets (SBTs). Companies should be setting ambitious targets and reducing emissions in line with a 1.5-degree scenario and in the longer-term reach net-zero, as laid out by the Paris Agreement in 2015. This sets clear and measurable goals and helps frame a companies’ ambitions. CDP has also expanded the target questions to include forest, land, agriculture targets (or better known as FLAG targets) for companies in land-intensive and agriculture sectors, in line with the new SBTi criteria. In order to reach leadership status (A-) this year, companies are expected to disclose a near-term emissions target that is either validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) or meets SBTi criteria.
In recent years, supply chain decarbonisation has been identified as a key lever for companies to decarbonise their own value chain. Supply chain-related emissions are the largest source of emissions for many companies, emphasising the importance of supplier engagement. Supplier engagement is a set of mechanisms or interventions implemented both internally and with suppliers to empower them to create decarbonised and more resilient supply chains. As per CDP guidance, the SBTi guidance on setting supplier engagement targets and ISO 20400, engagement with suppliers and embedding processes within procurement, are vital to reach net-zero. Supplier engagement is also an essential criteria in achieving A-list status with CDP.
Despite the introduction of the biodiversity module in 2022, few companies have broadened their sustainability strategies to assess and address the issue of biodiversity and nature loss. Morgan Stanley and Stanford have released research ahead of COP16 confirming that companies need better ways of measuring corporate impacts on nature and its contributions to human well-being. Data will be essential in monitoring and tracking progress against key 2030 targets, including Target 15, as laid out by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which was adopted during COP15. CDP and Business for Nature, among other partners, have presented a guide on what nature strategies and nature transition plans are and have further emphasised the interdependence of climate change and biodiversity and the importance of addressing both simultaneously. To do that, companies should consider and integrate governance and decision-making, commitments, monitoring and reporting on biodiversity issues. Moreover, biodiversity is one of the indicators under CSRD and nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities are emphasised in the TNFD. CDP has increased its alignment with both these frameworks and regulations by making biodiversity questions mandatory for all companies to respond to. Therefore, it’s best to start reviewing the biodiversity requirements and regulations now to prepare for 2025.
The sustainability landscape is evolving rapidly, with new regulations and frameworks coming into play. Two notable developments are the ISSB and CSRD:
ISSB: CDP have fully aligned and incorporated ISSB’s IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures in the 2024 questionnaire to help companies prepare for mandatory disclosure. The ISSB aims to standardise sustainability reporting globally, focussing on governance, strategy, risk and opportunity management, including the processes used to identify and assess risks and opportunities, metrics, and targets. The IFRS S2 is fully aligned to and builds from the TCFD. Therefore, preparing for CDP can act as an effective tool to support companies on their path to IFRS S2 and TCFD compliance. By aligning your CDP efforts with ISSB guidelines, you can ensure that your sustainability disclosures meet international expectations and reduce reporting burdens.
CSRD: The CSRD’s European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), a European initiative, goes beyond ISSB. It is significantly more ambitious and robust, covering 10 ESG topics – climate, biodiversity, water, pollution, circular economy, among others – and deals with double materiality (both impacts and risks). The directive will significantly impact businesses operating within the European Union and outside of it (non-EU large companies which have significant activities in the EU will be impacted from 2028) as it is legally binding. Early preparation ensures that you are well-versed in the requirements and can seamlessly integrate them into your CDP processes, minimising compliance-related challenges. CDP’s 2024 questionnaire was already substantially aligned and there are plans to expand its alignment with the climate standards of CSRD (ESRS) through its official partnership.
Once you’ve identified the gaps in your CDP response, the next step is taking action to target those gaps. Sustainability is not just about mitigating risks, it’s also about capitalising on opportunities. Starting early with your CDP efforts enables you to identify areas where you can enhance your sustainability performance and create value. Whether it’s optimising energy efficiency and reducing costs, exploring low-carbon products or accessing new markets, a proactive approach allows you to align sustainability goals with business strategies and gain a competitive edge.
At SE Advisory Services, we understand the importance of early preparation. SE Advisory Services has a range of services to help prepare companies for the next CDP cycle and improve scores through strengthening sustainability strategies.
Transition planning: Our transition planning services provide companies with expert support in the development of strategic ambition and/or operationalisation of your sustainability and climate strategies. We can help you to understand specific actions needed to deliver on your climate commitments, the financial implications of this plan and how to embed it within your business by ensuring the necessary governance, ownership and control measures are in place.
Alongside this, our operational change management can help you understand your readiness for change and build a change management programme that ensures all affected stakeholders understand and are aligned to the company ambition, to ensure the smooth implementation of your transition plan.
TCFD alignment and CSA: SE Advisory Services offers TCFD (and related frameworks) readiness assessments as well as CSA to understand and assess current and future climate risks and opportunities and estimate their financial and strategic impact on organisations.
Setting near-term and net-zero science-based targets (SBTs), including FLAG targets: SE Advisory Services offers support for every step of setting a SBT, including everything from providing industry context on SBTs, calculating a company’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, engaging the team to modelling your targets and assisting with SBTi submission and validation. SE Advisory Services have helped over 110 companies set SBTs with an 100% approval rate.
Supply chain engagement: Supplier engagement is an ongoing cyclical process, which embeds into procurement processes and focuses on ongoing improvement of Scope 3 data collection, analysis and KPI setting for suppliers to decarbonise at a rate that aligns to your business. SE Advisory Services offers a bespoke approach to supplier engagement, including evaluating internal procurements processes, assessing supplier maturity, modelling supplier targets, and providing recommendations on next steps for decarbonising your supply chains. SE Advisory Services can also support with implementation of decarbonisation levers from bespoke procurement mechanisms to delivering training and upskilling both suppliers and internal team members.
Biodiversity: SE Advisory Services offers biodiversity screenings, footprint calculations, assesses companies risks relating to biodiversity (e.g. through TNFD) and assists companies in taking actions and reducing impact on biodiversity (e.g. through SBTN).
Regulatory Expertise: Companies can stay ahead of emerging regulations like the ISSB and CSRD with our regulatory expertise. We provide insights into compliance requirements, which helps reduce the reporting burdens and integrate responses into your CDP.
Starting early with your CDP response allows you to identify and address gaps, seize opportunities for improvement, and prepare for upcoming and emerging regulations and frameworks. Furthermore, it will help prepare for the upcoming changes to CDP disclosure in 2025. By doing so, your organisation not only becomes more resilient but also contributes to a more sustainable future while maintaining a competitive edge in the market.
This proactive stance will improve your score for the next reporting cycle, while fostering a culture of sustainability within your organisation. SE Advisory Services is here to help you navigate this journey, maximise your impact, and drive positive change.
For all the 2025 updates, timelines and the future of CDP, download your copy of the 2025 CDP Factsheet today.
Choose SE Advisory Services for industry-leading expertise in climate strategy and sustainability solutions. We’re here to guide your business through every step towards achieving your sustainability goals while supporting your operational success and market reputation.