Despite a wave of new climate-related disclosures and regulations, only 15 percent of the companies that disclose to CDP have set a Scope 3 target. Among the most common reasons for this slow adoption of company-wide policies is a lack of technology and low budgets.
But despite the everchanging regulations, CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, remains highly relevant. CDP gives companies a common way to measure and report climate impact, resulting in their ability to benchmark sustainability performance, mitigate risks, and attract investments. These feed directly into active directives and regulations like the CSRD and the EU Taxonomy, and into IFRS S2, which fully incorporates the TCFD recommendations now that the task force itself has disbanded.
CDP software vendors have adapted to simplify adherence to CDP’s disclosure requirements with dedicated features. These tools work across CDP’s 13-module corporate questionnaire and map responses to the four TCFD elements CDP still aligns to — governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets — while supporting other frameworks and directives.
Let’s assess the best CDP reporting software out there with a quick look at must-have features in a CDP tool.
Features to look for in CDP software
When looking for a CDP reporting tool, keep an eye on these small details:
- The software must give you access to all CDP questionnaire items, including predefined options for immediate answers that will make the reporting processes faster.
- You should be able to look up responses from past years, make quick updates, and examine trends across governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
- Many CDP platforms come with search engines that make automatic calculations based on the provided information which will ultimately ensure the data you report on is accurate.
- As you scale, you’ll want to collect synced data from across various departments so you can keep the latest data in a single place for real-time, accurate CDP reporting.
- A key CDP app strength is access to sustainability analysts or consultants for reporting assistance.
Here’s an overview of top CDP platforms to automate sustainability reporting and ensure ESG compliance:
1. Tracera
What makes it unique: Tracera is an end-to-end sustainability management tool for data collection, auditing, and reporting that goes beyond CDP, helping you report on existing as well as custom frameworks.
By automating ESG operations like utility bill data collection, emissions tracking, and supplier engagement, Tracera supports businesses that want to move faster without giving up on sustainability and ESG compliance. Beyond just automation, the platform centralizes access to historical data, making it easy to compare and update reports in a manner so you can save time with each reporting cycle.
Tracera’s platform also comes with audit trails that allow you to review data securely so no points are missed in the reporting process. Worried about your suppliers? Tracera’s streamlined supplier engagement lets you make informed decisions when it comes to procurement, keep suppliers accountable, and choose the best partners to help your business succeed.
Key features:
- Comprehensive CDP questionnaire: Access all CDP questions, complete with dropdown answers, directly within the platform. This simplifies the reporting process and enables users to leverage collaboration and status tracking features effectively.
- Historical data access for easy updates: Last year’s CDP responses are instantly accessible directly within the platform, allowing for quick comparison and seamless updates, saving time and effort during each reporting cycle.
- Expert ESG and CDP advisory services: Turn your sustainability data into action with tailored guidance from industry experts. Tracera’s advisory services help you achieve compliance with regulations, set ambitious but achievable ESG goals, and use strategic insights to improve sustainability ratings.
“This is a one-stop-shop for us. We don’t have to go to multiple data owners to get information. The tool does exactly what we need it to.” — Sonali Samani, Head of Environmental, Social and Governance at IWG.
2. EcoOnline
What makes it unique: EcoOnline offers a CDP reporting module powered by Ecometrica, with an emphasis on cutting administrative work and lifting scores, backed by accredited Gold Partner status since 2013.
Key features:
- Emission factors calculation engine: Access a vast library that allows for instant calculations of emissions, without the need to manually source data.
- Pre-formatted data: Environmental data is automatically formatted to match CDP specifications.
- Automatic calculations: The tool automatically keeps data and reports aligned with CDP requirements.
3. LogicManager
What makes it unique: LogicManager is primarily an enterprise risk management solution with sustainability and CDP reporting capabilities as an extra bonus.
Key features:
- Policy portal: Gives you a view of all ESG policies in one place.
- Risk Maturity Model (RMM): Measures how strong your risk management program (and implicitly your ESG program) is.
- Automated ESG disclosure management and sustainability reporting. Keeps your organization on track with standards such as CDP, GRI, SASB and SBTi.
“The ease of use of the new features really struck a chord with me because very few systems are ‘user friendly.’ The enhancements make me want to utilize LM more and I began to explore areas that I had recently felt were too complicated without a Client Success Manager.” — Malinda E., Sr Governance Compliance Manager
4. Credibl ESG
What makes it unique: Credibl ESG is an AI-powered ESG data management and reporting platform serving corporates, investors, financial institutions and supply chain partners, with a dedicated CDP module covering the corporate, supply chain and cities programs.
Key features:
- Supply chain disclosures: Give suppliers the tools they need to disclose their climate and water risks transparently.
- City-level reporting: These tools help city governments measure, manage, and disclose their environmental data as per CDP’s city program.
- Climate change reporting: Tackle climate change risks and opportunities using dedicated tools in line with CDP’s climate change program.
5. IBM Envizi
What makes it unique: IBM Envizi’s ESG Reporting Frameworks module includes a Sustainability Reporting Manager component that supports international sustainability frameworks and directives, including CDP, GRI, SASB and IFRS S1 and S2. CDP questions are embedded directly in the platform with response fields, so answers go in where the data already lives.
Key features:
- Extensive data integration: Combines data from different sources in one platform, allowing users to collect and analyze ESG metrics, such as emissions, energy use, and building ratings.
- Export reports and dashboards: Envizi provides visual dashboards and reports, exportable in a wide variety of formats, for easy insights sharing to comply with CDP.
- PowerReport: Exposes quantitative data through IBM’s CDP Climate PowerReport, which IBM updates each CDP cycle.
“This tool helps in consolidating the data and streamlining the ESG reporting with ease. Once we give the data, it will automatically collect the data and consolidate with different data types.” — Kaushik Kumar U., Lead Developer
The right CDP software makes sustainability reporting effortless, saving your team hours of manual compliance work. Each of the tools above has unique features built for specific organizational purposes.
That said, Tracera, with its all-in-one approach, questionnaire access, and historic data management, is setting the tone here. Book a demo to see how Tracera can innovate your CDP reporting process.