Last week, we wrote that the CDP announced its cooperation with EFRAG for adapting its current system for disclosures to fully align with EFRAG. The reduction is disclosure frameworks and alphabet soup sure sounded good, but as Novisto’s Marie-Josée Privyk pointed out, perhaps our enthusiasm should be curbed. She reminds us that CDP is a voluntary program and
“It’s difficult to see how a voluntary questionnaire will be of much help [in complying with the mandates of EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, and CDP]… has no way of ensuring or verifying that the information provided by the companies applies or complies with these requirements.”
She continues:
“CDP currently covers a few environmental topics – climate, and more recently forest and water. And while the organization has committed to expanding its scope to the planetary boundaries, these remain exclusively in the environmental realm. This means the CDP questionnaires will only ever cover a portion of companies’ [broader] sustainability-related disclosure obligations under the CSRD… It should be noted that comparability will only be addressed if and only if companies providing their data to CDP use the same reporting standards and calculations in generating this data.”
Marie-Josée has some good points. Even assuming CDP expands beyond its environmental roots, companies need to understand the benefits – and potential gaps – in relying on CDP for CSRD compliance purposes. Our checklist 6 Things You Need to Know About the EU’s CSRD can help you understand and navigate the basics of CSRD so you can plan data needs.
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