Following a year of extreme heatwaves, drought and devastating flooding, we are pleased to see that this year the number of companies leading the way in environmental transparency and disclosing to CDP has risen once again.
This week, the CDP scores for the 2022 round of disclosures were released. Out of almost 15,000 companies scored this year, 330+ companies achieved a Leadership A-list ranking, with 283 achieving an A scoring for the Climate Change Questionnaire, including our own parent company, Atos. EcoAct’s clients are among those achieving the highest-level score and demonstrating their leadership in addressing climate risks and contributing towards a low carbon future. This year our clients make up 4% of those on the 2022 A-List.
Congratulations to the Leaders
EcoAct is delighted to congratulate fifty five of its clients for achieving Leadership status. In total, 13% of our clients achieved an A this year. We are also really pleased to announce a very positive year across the board for our clients and partners, with an overall average increase in scores for the clients we worked with and 14% of those improving their score to an A or A- this year.
Each year our clients continue to climb the ranks of the CDP scores and we are encouraged to see corporates raising their climate ambitions and working hard to improve their climate disclosures even in the face of unprecedented global challenges.
In fact, a record-breaking 18,700+ companies responded to CDP this year, which CDP report to be a 42% uplift on last year and a 233% increase since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Companies representing over 50% of global market capital now respond to CDP, which is really promising progress given the growing urgency of the climate crisis and need for concerted action and, importantly, transparency.
What is CDP and why do CDP scores matter?
CDP is one of the most comprehensive and internationally recognised sustainability reporting platforms. It works on behalf of investors representing US$130 trillion in assets. The scores published by CDP allow these investors to see that companies are incorporating sustainability into their business strategy and practices, so they can assess the climate risk of their portfolios.
The importance of good quality climate disclosures has never been more pressing, particularly in light of the massive impact the climate emergency poses to our global economy and the limited time we have left to limit global temperature rise and reach net-zero.
The increase in CDP disclosure this year seems to demonstrate the power wielded by the investor community to shape disclosures and drive forward progress on climate. We hope to see this progress continue into 2023.
CDP in 2023
No sooner have the scores been released, but attentions will start to turn to next year. EcoAct will be publishing a revised CDP factsheet summarising any updates to the Questionnaires and providing tips for how you can maximise your 2023 disclosures early in the New Year. Watch this space…
Our partnership with CDP
EcoAct are a Gold CDP Climate Change partner as well as a Gold CDP Partner for science-based targets. Every year we work with a wide range of companies across many different sectors to help them tackle the challenges of climate change, set ambitious climate targets and achieve improvements to their annual disclosures to CDP. We have supported 80 companies with their CDP disclosures over the past two years and in 2022 we supported 100 clients submit 131 CDP responses.
