CDP Disclosure 2026: 3 Tips to Avoid a Capped Score

Submitting another sustainability disclosure can feel cumbersome, especially for teams that have just wrapped up yearly reporting or submission to other frameworks. I’ve worked with enough companies in my career to know they aren’t wrong. There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into building a complete carbon inventory, preparing the business case, and writing your disclosure so your score reflects the investments your business is making into sustainability now and in the years ahead.

The business case for CDP is straightforward. It’s becoming one of the clearest signals to investors that a company is making material progress on its sustainability goals. If investors or key customers are already asking about the work you’ve done, CDP gives them the credible and independent answer they rely on when making purchasing decisions.

I’ve put together a few tips on what I’ve seen as the key factors in a successful CDP disclosure. There are three:

• Answers that directly address the scoring criteria
• A carbon inventory that’s complete and accurate
• Reduction goals that are presented clearly

The disclosure window opened on June 15th and closes in September. This is the first in a series of posts my colleague Daniel Johansson and I will publish on CDP as we guide some of Normative’s customers through the process.

Answers reflect the scoring criteria

I know this sounds obvious, but I’ve watched teams communicate fantastic work clearly and concisely, only to then miss out on a higher score because they didn’t address every criterion in the category. It’s discouraging when the work you’ve put into making a meaningful impact on your business isn’t reflected in these scores.

In the CDP 2026 scoring methodology, essential criteria serve as strict baseline prerequisites that your organization must satisfy at each specific scoring tier to advance to the next level. Miss one at a given tier and your whole score gets capped there, no matter how well you did everywhere else.

Let’s look at another example: Despite demonstrating top-tier carbon accounting and achieving point maximums across most modules, a company might fail to disclose a qualified temperature-aligned transition plan under question 5.2. because they missed this single Leadership-level requirement (EC-CC7). The company’s overall score is then strictly capped at a Management level “C,” proving that strategic climate leadership requires absolute compliance with these non-negotiable reporting baselines.</span>

Here’s how to avoid that:

• Be mindful of the categories you’re weaker in. Stretching your own interpretation to fit a criterion rarely raises your score and risks adding noise.

• Review the scoring rubric and map your answers straight to it, it makes it obvious how your work meets each criterion.

• Don’t overexplain on the criteria you’re confident about because extra detail runs the risk of burying what’s material to the rubric.

Carbon inventory is complete and accurate

Your GHG inventory is the foundation of everything you disclose. By the time you report, you should feel confident in your numbers and have no gaps to explain.

A common discrepancy isn’t a wrong number, it’s actually a missing one (we know how frustrating this can be!) Reporting Scope 1 and 2 while leaving Scope 3 out, or leaving a category blank with no explanation, these are the sort of errors that keeps otherwise strong disclosures out of the Management and Leadership tiers. Scope 3 is usually the largest part of your footprint, so it’s also where the most points sit. Regularly taking a step back to look at the completeness of your answers pays dividends here.

• If a category genuinely isn’t ready yet, say so and lay out how you’ll calculate it next year. A stated plan scores far better than a blank.

• Quantify your most material Scope 3 categories before you start, like purchased goods and transportation. It’s the clearest marker of maturity in your disclosure.

Reduction goals are presented clearly

The hard work your team is doing to cut emissions should show up just as clearly in the disclosure. A granular inventory lets you build targeted initiatives and track progress year over year, and CDP is a fantastic method to demonstrate your organizations investments.

Where teams tend to undersell themselves is specificity. A goal like “we’re committed to reducing our footprint” reads as intent, not a tangible investment. CDP rewards targets you can stand behind: validated by a framework like SBTi, dated, and tied to a clear trajectory. The same goes for climate risk. Naming a risk earns less than naming the risk, what you’re doing about it, by when, and what it means financially.

• Tie each target to a verified framework like SBTi, and include evidence of progress against your baseline year, not just the target itself. This builds credibility in this report.
• For each climate risk, pair it with the action, the timeframe, and the financial implication. A risk with a plan attached is what moves you from awareness to management in the same way many organizations set goals and objectives.
• Where you’ve already cut emissions, put the number next to it. If you switched a facility to renewable electricity, disclose the annualized savings, not only the emissions saved. The financial effect is one of the clearest signals of a mature strategy.