You finally have the EcoVadis medal your customers kept asking for. Procurement is relieved, sales is happy, and your inbox is a little quieter. Then the next RFP lands and someone asks more questions: Have you provided ESG and climate-related disclosures through CDP?
For many companies, sustainability reporting is not a strategic or linear journey—and it is rarely voluntary. One global customer might ask for EcoVadis reporting. Another insists on CDP. A lender or investor may introduce additional climate disclosure expectations. Most organizations are not choosing a “next step.” They are responding to external requests because those relationships matter.
EcoVadis and CDP are often discussed together, but they serve different purposes and audiences. Understanding what each one asks for is key to responding efficiently and credibly.
EcoVadis has become a common starting point for suppliers looking to demonstrate they have a real sustainability program. Many large organizations use EcoVadis to assess and manage sustainability performance across their supply chains.
Its ratings cover four themes across environmental criteria (Environment and Sustainable Procurement) and social and ethical responsibility (labor & human rights and ethics). Procurement teams at more than 1,400 multinationals now use EcoVadis ratings in day-to-day purchasing decisions.
That scale matters. If you have invested in EcoVadis you likely already have centralized policies, documented procedures, and at least some site level data on energy, waste, water, and supplier performance. You have done the organizational work of defining standards and collecting information—even if it was driven by a customer request rather than internal strategy.
CDP sits in a different part of the sustainability ecosystem. Where EcoVadis evaluates whether policies, processes, and management systems are in place, CDP focuses on detailed, quantitative environmental performance—particularly related to climate change.
CDP’s Climate Change questionnaire examines governance, strategy, risk management, and Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Its Supply Chain program extends that same climate lens up and down the value chain, asking companies to quantify impacts and risks in a way that can be compared across peers.
Both frameworks touch similar topics, but they test them in different ways. EcoVadis signals that a company has a credible sustainability program. CDP asks companies to put numbers behind that program—emissions totals, boundaries, targets, and year-over-year trends—in a format designed for comparison by capital markets and regulators.
In practice, this means companies may face EcoVadis and CDP requests simultaneously, or from entirely different stakeholders, without one being a prerequisite for the other.
In 2024, more than 24,000 companies—representing about $67 trillion in market capitalization—submitted environmental disclosures through CDP, making it the world’s most widely used climate and environmental disclosure platform.
The demand for CDP disclosure is even broader than participation alone suggests. CDP's network includes more than 640 investor and buyer signatories, representing roughly $142 trillion in assets, who request environmental disclosures from over 31,000 companies each year. Not every company responds in every cycle, but this network reflects the scale of market, investor, and supply-chain pressure behind CDP reporting.
CDP data is used to inform investment decisions, lending strategies, and supply-chain engagement. CDP’s own analysis shows that “A List companies”—only the top 2% of companies that disclose—have delivered around 6% higher stock returns than peers over the past decade. Independent reviews find they also tend to lead in other ESG rating systems and have better access to capital.
Regulatory momentum continues: California’s SB 253 and SB 261 expand climate disclosure expectations for companies doing business in the state, while the EU’s CSRD significantly raises the bar for greenhouse gas and climate risk reporting for multinational organizations. At the same time, 99% of S&P 500 companies now publish some form of sustainability information.
Reporting through CDP—whether or not you also use EcoVadis—expands both the scope and depth of environmental disclosure. CDP requires detailed, quantitative, and climate-specific data across greenhouse gas emissions, climate-related risks, governance, and business strategy.
The shift is not about moving “up” from one framework to another. It is about changing the type of evidence you put on the record. Companies transition from discussing whether policies and processes exist to demonstrating how exposed they are to climate risk, what their actual emissions are, and how their plans will alter those numbers over time. Because CDP aligns with globally recognized frameworks like TCFD and ISSB, the resulting disclosures are readily understood by investors and regulators.
There is a significant operational component behind this shift. CDP responses require companies to integrate data from various systems, including energy, waste, water, and procurement, into a single database. This can bring familiar problems to the surface, including fragmented data collection, inconsistent emissions boundaries between teams or regions, and unclear internal ownership of climate metrics. At the same time, CDP forces a mindset change—from narrative descriptions to benchmarkable numbers.
When it works, CDP disclosure delivers greater transparency, stronger peer comparisons, and a clearer signal of how a company manages climate risk. It also opens the door to sustainable finance tools and ESG-driven partnerships that favor companies with credible, data-backed transition plans. The organizations that get the most value from CDP are usually those that align sustainability, finance, and operations early, so everyone is working from the same numbers and goals.
The underlying work required to respond to EcoVadis and CDP is often more similar than it appears to be. The challenge is turning scattered site data, spreadsheets, and supplier information into a comprehensive, auditable disclosure that works across frameworks and continually improves.
This is where Emerald Built Environments, A Crete United Company, comes in. Emerald works with clients at the intersection of sustainability, business, and the built environment, helping owners understand and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while meeting disclosure rules. As an Approved EcoVadis Training Partner, Emerald already helps companies strengthen their EcoVadis performance and supply chain transparency, and applies the same standardized approach to CDP and regulatory reporting.
Our work typically begins with mapping and standardizing data across sites, ensuring that energy, water, waste, and operational metrics are reported consistently. From there, we support full greenhouse gas inventories and verification, build out Scope 1, 2, and 3 in a reusable structure, and help engage suppliers where better Scope 3 data is needed.
The goal is not a one-time response, but a repeatable system that reduces effort and improves data quality year over year.
Whether your starting point is an EcoVadis request, a CDP invitation, or a new regulation, the direction of travel is the same: more data, more transparency, and a greater focus on climate in business decisions.
EcoVadis and CDP are not steps on a ladder. They are different lenses applied to the same underlying challenge. Companies that respond most efficiently are those that stop treating each request as a standalone exercise and invest instead in a shared data foundation that works across frameworks.
Emerald can be your long-term partner in that effort—from ratings and reporting to real decarbonization. If you are ready to take the next step Emerald can help you turn that disclosure into a business advantage.