CDP Support: Why Get Professional Help for Your CDP Questionnaire

The CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) is an international non-profit organization that provides a standardized framework for environmental data disclosure. Its questionnaire—adapted to a company’s sector and size—covers climate change, water security, deforestation, as well as biodiversity and plastic waste.

Companies disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, climate governance, environmental policies, and their analysis of risks and opportunities.

CDP assigns a score from A to F, reflecting the organization’s level of environmental maturity: disclosure, awareness, management, and leadership.

Why get professional support for your CDP disclosure

Completing a CDP disclosure is a structuring and demanding project that requires the involvement of multiple teams and the collection of large volumes of data. Without prior expertise, the risk of errors, inconsistencies, or under-scoring is high.

Professional support helps to:

• Clarify CDP methodology and understand the specific expectations behind each question.
• Structure data collection and validation (carbon footprint, policies, actions, governance).
• Ensure compliance with recognized standards (e.g. GHG Protocol).
• Optimize responses to maximize both score and credibility.
• Prepare future benchmarking against sector peers.

This support becomes especially critical for SMEs and mid-sized companies responding to client requests or preparing for future CSRD compliance.

The concrete benefits of CDP support

Professional CDP support delivers real operational and strategic value.

1. Time savings: by centralizing data, automating certain steps, and reducing internal back-and-forth.
2. Data quality and consistency: every data point is verified, sourced, and formatted according to CDP requirements.
3. Improved scoring: clear structuring and appropriate terminology enhance response readability and improve the final score.
4. Reduced compliance risk: strong documentation and traceability also facilitate audits and future reporting obligations (CSRD, ESRS).

Using digital tools to simplify questionnaire completion

Beyond human support, digital tools now make it possible to simplify and streamline CDP questionnaire completion.

Platforms such as Ditto enable companies to:

• Centralize policies, KPIs, and action plans used for CDP,
• Pre-structure responses based on existing documentation,
• Reduce repetitive tasks related to rewriting and consistency checks,
• Ensure better year-over-year continuity.

These tools are not designed to replace internal review or validation, but to save time on formatting and structuring, allowing teams to focus on what matters most: data quality and real environmental progress.

Who can support a company with its CDP disclosure?

Several types of providers offer CDP support, with different approaches:

• ESG reporting consultancies: technical expertise in CDP questionnaires and scoring.
• ESG consultants or coaches: support with structuring, data collection, and team enablement.
• Software providers: platforms centralizing data, policies, and action plans (often interoperable with EcoVadis, ISO, CSRD).

When selecting a partner, prioritize a combination of proven methodology and human support, ensuring both time savings and internal capability building.

What a CDP support engagement typically looks like

A standard CDP support engagement generally follows several key steps:

1. Initial assessment: review of environmental maturity, available data, and reporting scope.
2. Data collection and validation: GHG emissions, policies, actions, governance, risks and opportunities.
3. Response structuring: drafting the questionnaire using CDP terminology and internal validation.
4. Submission and follow-up: assistance with submission on the CDP platform and final review before the deadline (mid-September).
5. Score analysis and improvement plan: identification of improvement levers for the next reporting cycle.

The process may take several weeks depending on scope complexity and data availability.

Costs and resources involved

CDP does not charge submission fees, but indirect costs (time, coordination, quality control) can be significant.

Professional support helps control these costs by reducing non-priority internal effort and professionalizing data collection.

In practice, budgets should account for:

• Internal team time (environment, finance, leadership).
• Data collection and analysis tools or services.
• Internal or external quality assurance to validate data and documentation.

Common mistakes to avoid

Certain mistakes can significantly harm both score and credibility:

• Completing the questionnaire without analyzing the specific expectations behind each question.
• Providing narrative answers without quantified data or evidence.
• Skipping final internal validation.
• Ignoring links between CDP and other frameworks (EcoVadis, CSRD).

Specialized support helps avoid these pitfalls and ensures methodological consistency across reporting frameworks.

CDP support: key takeaways