CDP — The Scorecard That Doesn’t Care If You’re Lying (Kind Of)
If GRI is the “here’s everything we did this year” report and SBTi is the “here’s where we’re trying to go,” then CDP is the scorecard you get in the middle — the one that tells you whether your disclosures are even halfway legit. Brands love to brag about making the “A List” on CDP. But what they rarely explain is that CDP doesn’t measure your actual performance. It just tells the world whether you're saying the right things — and saying them in the right format. That doesn’t mean it’s useless. But it does mean you need to know what CDP actually does.
So what is CDP, exactly?
CDP — formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project — is a global platform where companies report their environmental data. Every year, thousands of businesses fill out detailed questionnaires on their climate strategy, emissions, water use, and deforestation risks. Then CDP reviews those responses and assigns each company a score, from A to F. The better the disclosure, the higher the score. CDP doesn’t hand out awards for deep decarbonization. It’s not validating targets like SBTi. And it’s definitely not reading between the lines. It’s a system that scores transparency and disclosure quality, full stop.
Who started this thing and why?
CDP launched in 2000 in the UK, at a time when corporate climate risk was just starting to show up on investor radar. It was designed to make environmental data standardized, public, and accessible — because before that, no one was tracking anything in a consistent way.
Now, it’s a non-profit with global reach, used by:
Over 18,000 companies (as of 2023)
680+ financial institutions, representing over $130 trillion in assets
That last stat is the reason brands take CDP seriously: investors pay attention.
What does CDP actually ask for?
Each year, CDP sends out three main questionnaires:
Climate Change
Water Security
Forests
Brands can choose which ones to respond to based on their business. For example:
A fast fashion brand would almost certainly need to report on climate and water
A leather-heavy brand (think: luxury) should be tackling deforestation
The climate questionnaire — the most common one — covers things like:
Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions
Risk assessments (e.g. how climate change could impact operations)
Governance (board oversight, internal accountability)
Targets and alignment with SBTi or TCFD
Supply chain transparency
Scenario planning and carbon pricing
Then CDP takes all that info and scores the company on four dimensions:
Disclosure
Awareness
Management
Leadership
The more complete, specific, and forward-looking your answers are — the better your score.
Who’s using it in fashion?
Most major players. Some examples:
Kering
H&M Group
Nike
LVMH
Levi’s
These companies use CDP not just for reporting, but for investor relations. A good CDP score is something you can drop into ESG decks and annual reports to prove that you're on top of your risks — or at least pretending to be. What’s more: CDP tracks participation. If you skip the questionnaire, that’s public info too — which can raise a red flag with investors or NGOs looking for gaps in your reporting.
Is CDP legally required?
No. It’s 100% voluntary. But that doesn’t mean it’s low stakes. CDP is often considered a proxy for ESG readiness. If you don’t disclose, or if you disclose poorly, it looks like you either don’t know what your risks are — or you’re hiding something. That said, CDP doesn’t audit your data. It scores the structure and completeness of your disclosure — not the truthfulness or real-world impact. So a company can score well even if its actual emissions are rising, or its targets are weak. That’s why CDP is sometimes called a disclosure framework, not a performance framework.
Why does it matter in fashion?
Because fashion has massive Scope 3 emissions, fragile water-dependent supply chains, and deforestation risks tied to leather, viscose, and packaging.
CDP helps expose how seriously brands are taking those systemic risks — and how deeply they’ve mapped their supply chains. For example:
Are they reporting emissions beyond their HQ and stores?
Do they understand how water shortages affect raw material sourcing?
Are they screening their suppliers for forest-related impact?
Also: CDP is one of the only frameworks that ranks brands. And in an industry obsessed with rankings, that matters.
But what are the flaws?
There are a few — and they’re not minor.
CDP scores disclosure quality, not outcomes. A brand could be doing terribly on emissions but still score an “A” for filling out the form well.
It’s a heavy lift to complete. The questionnaires are detailed and technical — smaller brands often don’t have the resources to keep up.
It’s still based on self-reported data, and not everything gets externally verified.
Like most ESG frameworks, it can encourage checkbox behavior — doing just enough to look good, without making serious changes.
Where’s CDP headed next?
CDP is starting to align more closely with TCFD (risk disclosures) and ISSB (global sustainability standards) — which could give it even more weight in financial markets. It’s also investing in more supply chain-level data, which means upstream suppliers may soon feel the pressure too. And as Europe’s CSRD and ESRS roll out, CDP data might start feeding into those systems — especially for double materiality assessments. So while it’s still voluntary today, CDP could become a required input for mandatory ESG disclosures in the near future.