Guide · Named buyer requests
Your customer sent a CDP supply-chain request
If you had not heard of CDP until the email arrived, you are in the majority. Here is what it is, why your customer sent it, what a disclosure actually asks a small supplier for, and how to get your data in order before you open the platform.
Practical orientation for SMEs, not legal advice. EcoDiligence is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a submission channel for CDP.
- CDP runs an environmental disclosure system. Your customer asked you to disclose through it; you respond on CDP's platform, not to your customer.
- They sent it because their own reporting needs it — supplier data is how a large company replaces an estimated Scope 3 figure with a real one.
- The work that takes the time is assembling the data, not filling the form.
- Scope 1 and Scope 2 come out of twelve months of bills plus a published grid factor. That part is achievable this week.
- It will be annual. Build the data once, in something you can update.
What CDP Supply Chain actually is
CDP is a not-for-profit that operates a global environmental disclosure system — organisations report environmental data through it, and that data is used by investors, customers, and the reporting organisations themselves. Its supply-chain programme is the part that concerns you: member organisations ask suppliers in their value chain to disclose, typically covering greenhouse gas emissions, climate governance, targets, and how climate risk is managed.
Two things follow from that structure, and they are the two things suppliers most often get wrong. First, the response goes to CDP, not to your customer — replying to the email with a PDF attached does not complete anything. Second, the exact scope varies: which environmental themes are requested, and the deadline, depend on the requesting customer and the cycle. Read the request you were sent rather than a description of last year's form.
Why your customer sent it
Rarely because of anything to do with your performance. For most large companies, the emissions embedded in what they buy dwarf everything they emit directly. To report that credibly — and increasingly they are required to report it — they need supplier-specific figures instead of industry averages applied to spend. So they ask their suppliers. Selection is usually driven by spend, by sector, or by both.
Which is worth knowing, because it tells you what a good response looks like from their side: a defensible, method-stated number they can put in their own inventory. Not a glossy narrative. A figure with the emission factor named beside it beats a bigger claim without one, every time.
What it asks a small supplier for
Setting aside the specific wording of any given cycle, disclosures of this kind consistently reach for the same four things — and none of them require a sustainability department.
Read the request, not the internet
The scope varies by requesting customer and by cycle — which environmental themes are covered, and the deadline. Everything you need to plan is in the request your customer sent.
Fix your boundary
Decide which legal entity and which sites the response covers, and which twelve months. Do this before touching numbers — redoing it later is the expensive mistake.
Get the emissions figure right
Twelve months of electricity and fuel, converted with a published national grid factor. Keep the factor and its source — you will be asked for the method, not just the number.
Collect the governance facts
Who is accountable for climate matters, whether you have a target or a documented plan, and whether climate risk has been assessed. Yes/no answers are legitimate answers.
The one that stops people is the emissions figure, and it should not. Scope 1 is the fuel you burn — company vehicles, on-site heating. Scope 2 is the electricity you buy. Twelve months of bills and a published national grid factor produce both. What you must keep alongside the number is the factor you used and where it came from; a figure without a stated method cannot be checked, and increasingly will not be accepted.
Scope 3 — everything else in your own value chain — is a different order of question, and “we do not currently calculate Scope 3” is a legitimate answer from a small supplier. Before you attempt one, read what Scope 3 actually is and what a proportionate answer looks like.
What if you cannot make the deadline
Say so, early, to the customer contact who nominated you. Non-response is visible to the customer who requested it, and whether it carries any commercial weight depends on your relationship and on whether the request is tied to a supplier programme — the wording you received will usually tell you. What is reliably worse than a late response is a silent one, and worse still is a fast one full of invented numbers, because those follow you into every subsequent year's comparison.
Where EcoDiligence fits — and where it does not
Plainly: EcoDiligence does not submit your CDP response and does not produce a CDP score. That happens on CDP's platform, and only you can do it. EcoDiligence is an independent product with no affiliation to CDP.
What it does is the part that consumes the weeks. It turns your energy consumption into calculated Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions using a sourced, country-correct grid factor — see the Methodology for the factor table and provenance — and assembles the governance and workforce facts these disclosures ask for into one standards-aligned profile, mapped to EFRAG VSME and ISSB S2. You arrive at CDP's platform with the answers in front of you instead of a blank form and a spreadsheet to build.
Emissions, calculated
Enter energy use; Scope 1 and Scope 2 computed with a sourced national factor you can cite.
Governance, organised
Accountability, targets, policies and risk answers held in one place, in framework-aligned form.
Reusable next year
A standing profile you update, so the next cycle — and the next customer — is a refresh.
Then reuse it
CDP will not be the last request. The same underlying facts answer an EcoVadis assessment, a direct carbon-footprint ask, and whatever vendor questionnaire your next customer invents. Prepare once, answer many — that is the whole strategy, and it is the difference between an annual scramble and a two-hour update.
Frequently asked questions
This page is practical orientation for SMEs and is not legal advice. CDP is the trademark of its respective owner; EcoDiligence is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a submission channel for CDP, and does not issue CDP scores. Programme scope, questionnaire content and deadlines are set by CDP and by the requesting organisation and change between cycles — always work from the request you received. Data prepared with EcoDiligence is self-reported and is not a third-party rating or assurance.
Turn up to the platform with your numbers already done
A free ESG Passport calculates your Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from your energy data and keeps the method on the record.