By: Stephanie Gibbon and Tiana Nguyen – Schneider Electric Advisory Services

It is rare to get a CDP score higher than expected. More often than not, the scores companies receive are not what they hoped for.

Understanding your CDP score isn’t just a matter of knowing your ABCs; it’s about unlocking the story behind the letter grade. Whether your score met expectations or came as a surprise, the real value lies in how you interpret it and use it as a catalyst for meaningful progress and real business value.

Why CDP Still Matters (Beyond the Score)

Amidst evolving climate regulations and standards, CDP remains one of the most recognizable disclosure frameworks for investors, customers, and suppliers. CDP disclosures help companies:

• Demonstrate accountability and readiness on climate risks and opportunities
• Benchmark against peers and identify gaps in governance, strategy, and sustainability performance
• Build credibility with stakeholders who increasingly rely on standardized disclosures to inform procurement decisions, due diligence, and access to capital

While mandatory disclosures are in flux globally, CDP remains a steady force that encourages both maturity in disclosure and evidence of action. In other words: CDP rewards companies that don’t just say what they intend to do, but show how they’re doing it.

What Might Have Gone Wrong If Your Score Fell Short

If your score fell short, it’s rarely just one issue. Common pitfalls include:

1) Treating CDP as a Marketing Exercise, Not a Strategic Tool

Many companies invest significant time and money to draft lengthy disclosures, polished narratives and perfectly crafted responses, without making system-level changes that improve business performance. That approach consumes precious resources without generating critical sustainability ROI like supply chain resilience, cost savings, risk mitigation, and employee retention.

CDP’s scoring methodology prioritizes governance, strategy integration, targets, and evidence of implementation over strong narratives. Treating CDP like a marketing exercise leaves valuable points on the table. In other words, companies cannot “write” their way to the A-list; they must get there through measurable action and impact.

2) Critical Data Gaps and Quality Risks

Sustainability matters are not isolated to one business function. Rather, sustainability matters reach far across an organization, leaving data collection as a significant hurdle. Some common issues with sustainability data include incomplete Scope 1, 2, and 3 inventories, lack of data assurance, and manual, ad hoc data processes that undermine accuracy and auditability. Without robust data, it’s difficult to quantify progress, plan capital allocation, or credibly disclose performance.

Within CDP’s scoring criteria, disclosing key data points is often the gateway to earning additional points on related qualitative questions. Incomplete data thus has ramification beyond lost disclosure points, as it limits your ability to score higher across the entire questionnaire.

3) Disjointed Governance on Sustainability Issues

Given the expansive nature of sustainability matters within an organization, proper oversight of sustainability issues is a huge priority that is both key to success and directly reflected within CDP’s scoring methodologies. Some common issues that hurt sustainability programs and CDP scores alike include:

• Limited board and executive engagement in climate governance
• Sustainability siloed from enterprise risk, strategy, finance, and operations
• No clear RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) model or cross-functional operating cadence

Governance earns points, but more importantly, proper oversight enables execution and impact.

4) Sustainability Targets Without Credible Pathways for Change

As 2030 approaches, CDP and similar frameworks expect companies to demonstrate real progress toward emissions reduction targets. Without credible pathways for transformation, such as decarbonization roadmaps or a comprehensive climate transition plan, sustainability targets remain aspirational rather than achievable. Organizations need a comprehensive plan for how to achieve sustainability commitments—detailing governance structures, financial strategies, and operational changes needed to meet long-term climate goals.

While targets show intent, robust decarbonization roadmaps and climate transition plans provide proof that companies can successfully achieve their commitments.

The Business Case for Improvement

Treating CDP as a mere documentation exercise can drain resources without delivering meaningful returns. When CDP is approached as a catalyst for strategy and execution, it creates tangible business value.

• Strong scores can provide a procurement advantage, as many customers use CDP data in supplier selection, helping protect and grow revenue.
• Operational improvements such as energy efficiency projects, renewable adoption, and process optimization reduce costs and improve resilience against market volatility. Verified data and credible transition plans enhance access to capital through sustainability-linked financing and boost investor confidence.
• Beyond financial benefits, visible progress strengthens talent attraction and brand reputation, meeting employee expectations for transparency and action.
• Finally, robust CDP-aligned systems make adapting to regulatory requirements faster and more cost-effective.

In light of a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, it’s important to cut through the chaos and focus on making consistent progress that sees real benefits. Companies that treat sustainability as a game of disclosure whack-a-mole, tackling each new sustainability framework or regulation as they emerge, will find themselves struggling to keep up and will see few business benefits. Ultimately, the return on investment of sustainability relies on how a business operates, not on how sustainability is marketed.

What To Do Next for a Better Score Next Year

Receiving a score lower than expected signals where growth is needed and creates an opportunity to build a targeted improvement plan, where sustainability is a central business strategy. Companies looking to evaluate their 2025 CDP performance, identify weak spots and develop a targeted improvement plan for 2026 can take four simple steps.

1. Understand CDP’s scoring methodology: Read through CDP’s scoring methodology, which is made publicly available at the start of each reporting season. Take time to familiarize yourself with the four tiers of CDP Scoring: Disclosure (D/D-), Awareness (C/C-), Management (B/B-), and Leadership (A/A-). Understanding these scoring tiers and what distinguishes them from each other will help inform future reports.
2. Conduct a focused gap analysis of your disclosure: Understand where points were lost to identify particular trends or growth areas across your disclosure that contributed to a reduced score.
3. Prioritize actions into quick wins, medium-term solutions, and long-term initiatives: Quick wins include closing disclosure gaps, improving data controls, and initiating supplier engagement. Medium-term efforts involve setting science-based targets, developing transition plans, and automating data processes. Long-term priorities focus on executing decarbonization projects with suppliers, embedding sustainability into core business processes, and incentivizing leadership.
4. Establish a continuous improvement cadence: Annual score reviews, quarterly cross-functional steering groups, and KPIs that link emissions reductions to financial outcomes will improve your business’s sustainability performance and CDP score. Be sure to leverage change management and training to sustain progress.

 

About the authors

Stephanie Gibbon and Tiana Nguyen are Sustainability Consultants with Schneider Electric Advisory Services, helping organizations strengthen their environmental performance through robust emissions inventories, data driven insights, and tailored ESG strategies. With combined expertise in CDP reporting, GHG Inventory Development, and Scope 3 value chain analysis, Tiana and Stephanie bring cross industry expertise to elevate reporting quality, streamline collaboration, and advance best practices across teams.