UBC-CDP Cooperation

Join the UBC Cities disclosing their environmental data!

Recognizing that climate change will exacerbate the existing urban environmental management challenges in cities, UBC has committed to cooperate with CDP on regular and comprehensive measuring of cities’ climate footprints and actions. It is very important for cities to have reliable and effective tools for regular monitoring of progress, benchmarking and managing positive transformation towards their climate goals where necessary.

UBC aims to involve more member cities and encourage them to regular disclosure of their climate data, and to support stronger climate adaptation and mitigation efforts on the local level.

Agnieszka Ilola, UBC Sustainable Cities Commission

Why Report through CDP-ICLEI Track?

  • Streamlined Reporting: Report once to meet multiple climate initiative commitments such as ICLEI, C40, WWF One Planet City Challenge, and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. Measure your progress in UN-backed campaigns such as Race to Zero and Race to Resilience.
  • Comprehensive Support: Receive support to guide and improve your climate actions.
  • Science-Based Targets: Access the support to set and achieve science-based climate targets.
  • Potential Financial Benefits: Enhance your city’s attractiveness to investors by demonstrating a commitment to transparency and climate action.
  • Benchmarking and Progress Tracking: Identify data gaps and benchmark your city’s progress against peers.
  • Showcase Achievements: Your disclosed data will be featured in the annual UBC-CDP report and you will be able to earn badges to showcase your climate action leadership.


 

FAQ

What is CDP and its work with cities?

CDP is a global non-profit that runs the world’s environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states and regions. Founded in 2000 and working with more than 680 investors with over $130 trillion in assets, CDP pioneered using capital markets and corporate procurement to motivate companies to disclose their environmental impacts, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, safeguard water resources and protect forests.  
Over 20,000 organizations around the world disclosed data through CDP in 2022, including more than 18,700 companies, and over 1,100 cities, states and regions. CDP is a founding member of the Science Based Targets initiative, We Mean Business Coalition, The Investor Agenda and the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.

Why should I participate and report our city's climate change data through CDP?

Through CDP, cities can measure, monitor, and manage their impacts on their environment and access networks and shared information from cities all over the world. The main benefits of reporting through us include:

  • CDP-ICLEI Track is the one-stop shop for environmental reporting, allowing your local government to participate in several global and regional projects and initiatives. These include the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCOM), ICLEI's GreenClimateCities Program, EcoMobility, EcoLogistics, 100% Renewable Energy campaigns, WWF’s One Planet City Challenge as well as UNFCCC's Cities Race to Zero, Cities Race to Resilience and NetZeroCities.
  • Gain insight and feedback on your city’s climate action and response through CDP scoring. CDP will evaluate your data and provide you with a CDP score to indicate your performance across climate change adaptation, mitigation and transparency. CDP celebrates the highest scoring cities on its annual A-List campaign. This supports transparency towards citizens and can improve your reputation with investors.
  • Receive free support and training through individual support calls, webinars and guidance materials to learn international best practice and improve your city's climate efforts.
  • Receive direct support to improve and update your city’s climate target so that it is 1.5° aligned.
  • Compile all your environmental data in one place.
  • Track your city's sustainability and climate efforts annually.
  • Access data from 1000+ cities on the CDP Open Data Portal. This is a valuable resource where your city can view the actions of other cities and benchmark your progress over time against your peers.
  • The 2023 CDP Cities Questionnaire is aligned with the global standard of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Reporting publicly through the CDP-ICLEI Track can help you meet financial disclosure responsibilities and attract climate finance.
  • Have your city’s climate action featured on our website and in our media campaigns.
Is there a minimum amount of data that needs to be reported?

There is no minimum amount of data that needs to be reported and the response is completely voluntary at all stages. However, if your city is committed to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, certain requirements should be met. In order to pass the lowest scoring band of ‘disclosure’ according to CDPs scoring methodology, you must provide a fairly complete response to the Cities Questionnaire.

What type of information is requested by CDP?

The Cities Questionnaire requests qualitative and quantitative environmental data for the following themes:

  • Governance 
  • Climate hazards, Adaptation 
  • City-wide Emissions 
  • Emissions reduction, Opportunities 
  • Local Government Emissions 
  • Energy, Buildings, Transport 
  • Urban Planning 
  • Food, Waste 
  • Water security 

Detailed information on each section and question can be found in the 2023 Cities reporting guidance.

What happens to our data once we report?

CDP offers all participating cities tools and detailed feedback on their score to urge them to improve year on year. Cities are expected to provide a reasonably complete response overall in order to be scored accurately. CDP and ICLEI will both use self-reported local and regional government data to provide robust analysis - collaboratively or independently - of the climate actions being taken at the subnational level across the world. CDP use this data to produce city scores, analytics, snapshot reports, and feedback for local and regional governments on their score. CDP also makes publicly reported data available on its website and through its Open Data Portal. This allows local and regional governments to monitor their progress against their peers worldwide.

 

REPORTING PERIOD 2024

The 2024 CDP-ICLEI Track reporting platform opened at the beginning of June and will stay open till 1 December! UBC member cities are invited to share their climate and environmental data as part of this year’s reporting cycle. If you have any questions regarding the reporting process or CDP scores, please contact us at cities.europe@cdp.net and carbonn@iclei.org.

For those who have reported in previous years, your data from the 2023 questionnaire will be pre-filled in this year’s form. You can update and amend this data as necessary. To ensure your data is assessed by CDP, please submit it by the deadline on 15 October 2024. Albeit no score will be issued for the data disclosed after this date, the questionnaire will still be open until the beginning of December.

New for 2024:
This year, UBC SCC has pre-selected the questions in the CDP Cities questionnaire that are most relevant to our interests. This will streamline the reporting process and ensure the most consistent data collection and assessment.

By reporting your climate and environmental actions through the CDP-ICLEI Track, your city will join over 1,100 climate-ambitious local governments globally, leading the way in climate action and transparency. This platform not only helps cities to measure and manage their climate impact but also provides valuable insights to stakeholders such as national governments and the private sector.

We encourage all UBC member cities to participate and contribute to a resilient and sustainable future. For more detailed guidance on the reporting process, please visit CDP Guidance for Cities.

Get Started!

Join us in leading the change towards a net-zero and climate-resilient world!

Start Now 


Make sure to watch the 30-minute sessions offered by CDP this year. Each covers a different module of the questionnaire, and will go through the most important data points that cities should monitor and answer the questions they may already have! :   
 

  1. Climate Governance
  2. Climate Assessment
  3. Climate Targets
  4. Climate Planning
  5. Climate Action 

UBC-CDP COOPERATION REPORTS 

UBC has been preparing annual reports from the data UBC cities have submitted to CDP with their permission and covered different topics to showcase the best practices in the Baltic Sea Region.

USEFUL RESOURCES AND INSPIRATION 

So that you can find all the relevant materials and inspiration for starting or continuing your city's reporting process, an array of materials has been gathered to help you.

Find more inspirational materials.

COOPERATION IN PREVIOUS YEARS 

Interested to learn more about UBC-CDP cooperation during the previous years? Explore the CDP reporting journey from 2017 to 2023