CDP A LIST : from reporting to strategy

At one time little disclosed and even sensitive information, companies’ climate impact is now becoming increasingly measured, assessed and compared by third parties. The CDP, a non-profit organization based in the United Kingdom, has positioned itself as the leading body seeking to facilitate companies’ transparency and performance when it comes to reducing their environmental impacts. Indeed, for several years now major international companies have voluntarily responded to the CDP questionnaire, composed of fifteen sections concerning businesses’ climate strategies, their commitments, the evaluation of their CO2 emissions, etc. In 2016, the CDP questionnaire underwent major changes and a special process was introduced to define an A List, which names the most advanced companies when it comes to the climate according to CDP. Following the publication of the 2017 questionnaire and guidance by the latter, Carbone 4 decided to analyze the 2016 CDP A List in order to: 

• understand the specificities and singularities of these companies compared to other players in their sectors;
• identify the current prerequisites for inclusion on this A List
• analyze what aspects we can expect to see from CDP in the future.

This analysis which is the subject of our publication, concerns companies located in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom who were named on the A List in 2016. This represents a total of 46 companies operating in various sectors : automotive industry, ICT, finance, mass-market retail, energy, etc. Our publication can be downloaded in French and in English.