What Does CDP Stand For? The Carbon Disclosure Project Explained

CDP originally stood for the Carbon Disclosure Project. Today, “CDP” is the organization’s official name rather than an acronym. The shorter name reflects a mandate that now reaches well beyond carbon to water security, forests, biodiversity, plastics and oceans.

If you’ve been asked to respond to CDP, or you’re seeing “CDP Carbon Disclosure Project” in investor or customer requests, this article explains where the organization came from, what it does today and why its name still matters to sustainability teams.

The Short Answer

• CDP = formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project
• What it is: a global non-profit that runs the world’s largest environmental disclosure system
• Founded: 2000, in London
• What it does: asks companies, cities, states and regions to disclose environmental data on behalf of investors and buyers, then scores and distributes that data
• Why the name changed: carbon became one topic among many

A Brief History of the Carbon Disclosure Project

2000: A Simple Idea

The Carbon Disclosure Project was founded in London in 2000 by Paul Dickinson around a simple premise: if investors asked companies about their greenhouse gas emissions, companies would have to start measuring them. At the time, corporate emissions data barely existed in any comparable form.

2002: The First Investor Request

The first information request went out in 2002. It was backed by just 35 investors, and 245 companies responded. That small experiment established the model CDP still uses today: investors ask, companies answer, and the answers become shared market data.

Expanding Beyond Carbon

Over the following years, the organization broadened its reach:

• Supply chain: large purchasers began using CDP to request emissions data from their suppliers
• Water security: questions on water withdrawal, discharge and water-stress risk
• Forests: questions on deforestation linked to commodities such as palm oil, soy, cattle and timber
• Cities, states and regions: a separate disclosure track for sub-national governments

As carbon became just one of several themes, the “Carbon Disclosure Project” name no longer described the work. The organization rebranded as simply .

2024 Onward: One Integrated System

In 2024, CDP replaced its separate climate, water and forests questionnaires with a single integrated questionnaire, and aligned its climate questions with the ISSB’s IFRS S2 standard. Biodiversity and plastics questions followed, and ocean-related questions were introduced for 2026.

The scale has grown with it. In the 2025 cycle, more than 23,100 organizations disclosed through CDP.

What CDP Does Today

CDP plays four roles in the environmental data ecosystem:

1. Requests disclosure on behalf of capital markets signatories and supply chain members
2. Collects data through a standardized questionnaire and online portal
3. Scores responses on a scale from A to D-, with an F for companies that are asked but don’t respond
4. Distributes data to investors, customers, researchers and policymakers

The requesters carry real weight. For the 2025 cycle, 640 investor signatories representing US$127 trillion in assets requested disclosure, and more than 270 major purchasers asked roughly 45,000 suppliers to report.

CDP vs. Other “CDPs”

Search for “CDP” and you’ll find more than one meaning. In marketing technology, CDP means customer data platform, software that unifies customer records. In sustainability, CDP always refers to the environmental disclosure organization formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.

If you’re researching environmental disclosure, adding terms like “carbon,” “climate” or “disclosure” to your search will filter out the marketing results.

Why the Carbon Disclosure Project Still Matters to Enterprises

The name has changed, but the core mechanism hasn’t: people with money ask for your environmental data, and CDP makes it comparable. That gives CDP an influence few voluntary frameworks match.

It Shapes Investor Perception

Asset managers use CDP responses and scores to screen portfolios, prioritize engagement and inform ESG ratings. A missing or weak response invites questions.

It Shapes Customer Relationships

For B2B suppliers, a CDP response is often a prerequisite for doing business with large buyers working on their own Scope 3 targets.

It Previews Mandatory Reporting

Because CDP aligns with IFRS S2 and maps to ESRS, TNFD and GRI, the work you do for CDP increasingly overlaps with what regulations such as CSRD and California’s SB 253 require.

From Disclosure Project to Performance Discipline

CDP began as a way to get companies to measure. Twenty-five years later, the bar is higher: investors and customers expect data that is measurable, auditable and actionable, not estimates stitched together under deadline pressure.

That’s where enterprise teams are shifting their approach. Rather than treating CDP as a standalone survey, leading organizations manage sustainability data in a single system of record, with audit-grade lineage behind every figure, and map it once to report across CDP and every other framework they face.

Novisto is built for exactly that: one platform for ESG, carbon, risk and performance, with turnkey compliance across 34 global standards, regulations and frameworks.

Want to see how enterprise teams collect once and report to many?

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