This transportation company was an industry leader on sustainability. Among internal staff, reporting environmental performance through CDP was viewed as a meaningful way to preserve this image, boost investor confidence, and inform the company’s overall climate strategy. Annual response through CDP was also a key part of tracking progress against its ambitious goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2040.
However, CDP had markedly increased the rigor of its reporting requirements and scoring criteria in recent years. After several seasons of successful reporting, the company’s score fell. The client reached out for help understanding the new criteria and ways to increase the company’s score.
Sustainable Business Consulting project managed the company’s entire CDP reporting process, creating a strategy for boosting its score and amplifying its climate action efforts more broadly. Our team facilitated the following:
- Conducted a Scope 1 and 2 GHG inventory
- Guided client through a CDP gap analysis to determine how reporting was done in previous years and what actions were needed to improve
- Conducted stakeholder interviews (leadership, risk management, supply chain) to understand how client viewed climate risks and what accountability structures were in place
- Gathered quantitative and qualitative data for response
- Completed all five quantitative sections of CDP to help boost overall score
- Provided client with a D to B strategy for increasing its CDP score
- Identified various short- and long-term actions, including increased transparency and monitoring of targets, creation of SBTs, and bolstered climate risk assessment processes
With improved disclosure, especially around governance and climate risks & opportunities, the transportation company was able to achieve “awareness” level on CDP’s scoring system, moving up a full letter grade. As part of its D to B strategy, the company also created a climate working group to increase board level engagement on climate issues and is now setting Science-Based Targets.
These actions not only helped the company to defend its position as an industry leader on climate but also informed its TCFD response the following year.
