The challenge
Sustainability and ESG disclosure frameworks like CDP give companies a structured, credible way to understand and communicate their environmental impacts and plans for the future. Reporting through platforms like CDP allows organizations to gain clearer visibility into individual risks around emissions, water use, and supply chain vulnerabilities—while also identifying opportunities for improvement and innovation.
In 2019, a multinational automotive manufacturer recognized for its leadership in corporate sustainability had been reporting environmental and climate data through CDP and was actively seeking ways to improve its performance. Despite positioning sustainability at the core of its corporate strategy, previous CDP results did not fully capture how the company was integrating sustainability considerations into its business and operational decision-making. The automaker sought to better understand gaps in its disclosure, gain deeper insight into CDP’s methodology, and ensure that its reporting clearly reflected the ways in which its sustainability initiatives were embedded into its actual operations and longer-term business strategy.
Our solution
The ADEC ESG team has been closely collaborating with our client on CDP Water Security disclosures since 2019. With water stewardship at the heart of the company’s environmental strategy, meeting water-related goals, optimizing water-related services, and addressing investor requests are essential priorities for its sustainability team.
As part of our full disclosure completion service, our team supported the client across the full CDP disclosure journey, from initial scoping to final submission. This covered a wide range of improvements, from fine-tuning individual responses to recommending steps to elevate the client’s overarching sustainability programs, policies, and activities. This approach helped streamline internal workloads, allowing the client’s sustainability team to focus more on analyzing results and applying insights from the disclosure process to advance its broader sustainability and business strategy. Collaborating with our client’s internal team, we analyzed existing documentation and policies—such as the company’s environmental plan—and mapped relevant elements to the company’s CDP response. Our team also kept track of CDP methodology changes throughout the disclosure period, ensuring that the questionnaire response was consistent with up-to-the-minute updates from CDP. We communicated these changes to the client through regular work sessions that kept the client team fully informed and equipped with the latest knowledge from CDP.
We also identified ways to improve individual responses, address gaps, and prioritize practical, achievable steps that could strengthen data quality, governance, and alignment between disclosure and on-the-ground practices. This included estimated timelines for these recommendations and action items. Finally, an internal scoring review helped the client team validate whether the disclosure was consistent with CDP’s expectations, supporting more informed internal review and discussion ahead of formal submission. This detail-oriented approach provided our client’s sustainability team with the information they needed to make real, systemic changes that not only strengthened the company’s CDP disclosure but laid the groundwork for a more resilient, future-ready sustainability program. More notably, the insights gained through this process extended well beyond disclosure. They informed internal discussions on risk management, capital planning, and operational priorities, helping the company strengthen linkages between sustainability considerations and day-to-day business decision-making.
Seeking the same level of clarity and rigor for its Climate Change disclosure, in 2025 our client expanded the scope of our work to include full disclosure completion for both Water Security and Climate Change. Over the past several years, we have built a strong, trust-based partnership with our client based on collaboration, strong results, and great attention to detail. We remain committed to supporting the client’s sustainability team as they continue to elevate their sustainability program, and look forward to celebrating even greater milestones as they work toward their long-term environmental goals.
Results and Deliverables
- CDP Water Security Questionnaire – Full Disclosure Completion (2019 and on)
- CDP Water Security – Eight-time A-Listed Company
- CDP Climate Change Questionnaire – Full Disclosure Completion (2025 and on)
- CDP Climate Change – Seven-time A-Listed Company
