Greenstone and CDP recently delivered a 30-minute webinar on CDP reporting in 2019, how to prepare and some practical advice on how to improve your CDP response. We had quite a few questions during the webinar, so below we have answered them in the hope that it will help other organisations.
How does the calculation methodology work for CDP?
Principles of scoring
Scoring at CDP is mission-driven, focusing on CDP’s principles and values for a sustainable economy, and highlighting the business case to do this. Scoring provides a roadmap for companies to achieve best practice and by developing the scoring methodology over time, we are able to drive changes in company behaviour to improve environmental performance. The general scoring methodologies for each of CDP’s programs have been designed to incentivise actions that are to a certain extent applicable to all companies, in all sectors and in all geographies. The sector-specific methodologies incentivise actions applicable only to companies operating within that sector, across all geographies. For companies that have a good understanding of the scoring methodology, the score provides a snapshot of how they compare with other companies.
Points allocation
Responding companies will be assessed across four consecutive levels which represent the steps a company moves through as it progresses towards environmental stewardship. The levels are:
1) Disclosure
2) Awareness
3) Management
4) Leadership
At the end of scoring, the number of points a company has been awarded at Disclosure and Awareness level is divided by the maximum number that could have been awarded. The fraction is then converted to a percentage by multiplying by 100 and rounded to the nearest whole number. For Management and Leadership levels, the number of points achieved per scoring category are used to calculate the final score, according the scoring category weighting (see section ‘Scoring categories and weightings’).
A minimum score and/or the presence of a minimum number of indicators on one level will be required in order to be assessed on the next level 2. If the minimum score threshold is not achieved, the company will not be scored on the next level.
For more details please view the scoring introduction on the CDP guidance page.
If we think our activities/sector have been determined incorrectly what do we do?
If you think your classification is incorrect, please contact the CDP team through your account or country manager, or contact respond@cdp.net .
Can you give some examples of how companies manage their projects to report to CDP?
It can be difficult for organisations to gather information about projects and initiatives at the end of the year. Well prepared organisations will have a process for recording, monitoring and reporting initiatives and how the savings feed into their targets throughout the year.
Greenstone’s software has an Initiative Savings functionality, fully aligned with CDP, to help its clients track, monitor and report consumption, carbon and financial savings against environmental initiatives. For more information, please click here.
What sectors is CDP planning to create sector specific questions for beyond 2020?
CDP is not currently planning to create additional sector specific questions beyond 2020.
We complete our TCFD alignment in 2020 with the additional non-financial sectors: Real Estate and Capital Goods, and the Financial Sectors: Banking, Insurance, Asset owners, Asset management , for the Climate Change questionnaire.
You mention framework mapping, what about sector specific frameworks? (e.g. electronics industry)
The Corporate Reporting Dialogue is an initiative designed to respond to market calls for greater coherence, consistency and comparability between corporate reporting frameworks, standards and related requirements at a global scale.
Sector specific frameworks and company specific investor requests can be mapped to generic global frameworks in the Greenstone software – this creates a single structure for data collection to multiple frameworks.
Will the slides / recording be available?
Yes, please get in touch with Greenstone if you would like a copy of the slides. The video recording is available for any organisation to view, please click here to access it.
Got another question? Talk to us
David Wynn
Head of Client Services
Greenstone
