UBC-CDP Cooperation

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.