This article is for disclosing Cities, States, or Regions that have recently received their CDP score or are preparing to do so. It explains how CDP scores are developed, when they are released, what information is included in your initial score, and how to interpret your results. It also summarizes CDP’s commitment to transparency and quality.
Disclosers can use this article alongside the scoring materials on our website. You can find the key supporting documents listed at the bottom of this article.
Contents
What is a CDP score?
CDP scores measure how well Disclosers understand and manage their environmental impacts. Each response is evaluated using a detailed methodology that assesses Disclosure, Awareness, Management, and Leadership across key stages of climate action maturity.
CDP undertakes scoring by assessing responders against a public scoring methodology, which details how each question in the CDP-ICLEI Track Cities or the States Regions questionnaire will be scored, evaluating the responder’s progress towards environmental stewardship. The scoring methodology provides a roadmap to Cities, States or Regions to improve environmental performance, showing where progress is being made and where action is needed. CDP develops the scoring methodology each year to align with best practice, and by doing so CDP aims to drive changes in behaviour to improve local climate action and policy development.
Scores allow Cities, States, and Regions to track progress over time, benchmark progress against peers, identify areas for improvement, and communicate climate action to residents, funders, and partners. Scores are private to the disclosing jurisdiction unless an A score is awarded, in which case the jurisdiction will be publicly recognised on CDP’s A list.
Note: 3 questionnaire pathways are available to Cities, States and Regions to reflect the different contexts of local governments and to streamline reporting. These will be determined during your onboarding questionnaire setup. In 2026, CDP will only score Disclosers in Pathway 1.
For more detail on the above, please see our Cities, States, and Regions Scoring Introduction document.
How does CDP score Disclosers?
Scoring is carried out by CDP and accredited partners under strict quality assurance procedures. Scores are based solely on the data provided in your CDP response. External links or attachments are excluded unless they were specifically requested. Disclosers should ensure responses are complete, accurate, and current.
Each response is assessed against CDP’s public scoring methodology which reflects action on the core questions on climate change mitigation and adaptation in the areas of governance, assessment, planning and actions with some detail on sector metrics. Final overall scores are derived from question-level criteria, scoring rules and fulfilment of Essential Criteria.
Disclosers are allocated a final letter score, ranging from A to D-. For further guidance please also see the ‘For Cities’ and ‘For States and Regions’ tabs of our How to disclose page. Please note that ‘For States and Regions’ tab does not apply to Japan.
Scoring levels
Disclosers are evaluated across four scoring levels, representing stages of climate action maturity:
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Disclosure (D/D–): The jurisdiction is collecting and reporting basic climate data. The focus is on completeness of disclosure (e.g., emissions inventory, risks, governance).
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Awareness (C/C–): The jurisdiction understands its emissions sources and climate risks, and how they affect its community. Improved data quality demonstrates meaningful assessment, even if actions have not yet begun.
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Management (B/B–): The jurisdiction is implementing climate action. Evidence shows plans, policies, targets, and actions to reduce emissions and address climate impacts.
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Leadership (A/A–): Represents global best practice. The jurisdiction demonstrates ambitious, transparent climate action aligned with science and long-term resilience. Only jurisdictions that meet all Essential Criteria can achieve an A.
Essential Criteria
Essential Criteria are absolute requirements that must be met to achieve a scoring level. Failure to meet Essential Criteria may limit a Discloser’s score. Please see our Cities, States and Regions Essential Criteria document for more information.
How to read your score
Overall score
Your overall score is based on performance across the scoring levels. Scores reflect disclosure quality and maturity, rather than absolute environmental performance.
A scored response is evaluated first at the Disclosure level. To progress from one scoring level to the next, a minimum score threshold and all Essential Criteria for that level must be met. If these conditions are not fulfilled, your final score will remain at the previous level, even if there are areas of strong performance. The application of Essential Criteria ensures a consistent baseline of reporting at all levels of CDP scores.
The resulting ovetall score will appear in your Portal at the top of your page.
For more detail on thresholds and the scoring structure, please see the ‘Final score allocation’ section on Page 6 in our Citie, States and Regions Scoring Introduction document.
Timeline of score release
The full disclosure cycle has several stages to ensure consistency and quality of submissions, as follows:
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Response window: This is the timeframe when Disclosers prepare and submit their questionnaire responses via the CDP Portal before the scoring deadline, 11:59pm International Dateline West on September 16, 2026.
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Scoring and quality review: After the response window, CDP’s accredited scoring partners and internal scoring teams assess responses using the relevant scoring methodology and quality assurance processes.
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Initial score release: CDP makes scores available to Disclosers the week of November 30, 2026, through the CDP Portal, providing visibility of their results ahead of public release.
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Public release: Only Cities, States and Regions with A scores are published on CDP’s website, the week of November 30, 2026.
Disclosers will be notified of the schedule and key milestones via email and through the CDP Portal. More information on the key dates for the 2026 Disclosure cycle can be found on our website.
What’s included in the score release
2026 scores will be released to Disclosers the week of November 30, 2026. Scored Disclosers receive the following:
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Score: A score (D- to A) based on the assessment of the response against the appropriate public scoring methodology.
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Score privacy: Your score will only be in the public if you received an A score.
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Download option: In the top right of the ‘Score’ page you will have the option to download your score report as a pdf.
Why was I not scored?
In certain cases, a Discloser may not receive a score for the current scoring cycle. The reason behind this will be clearly stated underneath the ‘Score’ tile in your Portal. Common reasons include:
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Missed scoring deadline: If your response was submitted after the scoring deadline, 11:59pm International Dateline West on September 16, 2026, it may not be eligible for scoring.
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Other eligibility factors: CDP may not score a response if it does not meet required conditions as per Section 12 ofCDP’s Terms of disclosure.
If you have questions about your eligibility or believe you should have been scored, please raise a case through My Support in the CDP Help Center. When raising a case via My Support, please select the user type ‘I am a discloser’, the category ‘Score related Support’ and the subcategory ‘Organization Score Query’ to ensure your case goes to the correct team.
Transparency and quality: our commitment
CDP is committed to ensuring scores are accurate, transparent, and fair. All scoring follows standardized methodologies, Essential Criteria, and multi-layered quality assurance. Please see more information in the Cities, States and Regions Scoring Introduction document.
Score Appeal Process
If a Discloser believes an error has occurred in a score, CDP does offer an appeal process. If a Discloser wishes to engage in the score appeal process, they may submit an appeal form. Each appeal is independently reviewed by CDP’s scoring oversight team.Please review the Score Appeal Policy section (page 11) of our Cities, States and Regions Scoring Introduction document.
CDP will communicate the outcome once the review is complete. CDP reserves the right to fully review a Discloser’s response, including content that was not mentioned in the appeal. The result of the appeal is final.
This process helps ensure that all Cities, States and Regions are scored fairly, and that CDP maintains the highest standards of data quality and transparency.
For appeal support, please raise a case through via My Support on the CDP Help Center. When raising a case via My Support, please select the user type ‘I am a discloser’, the category ‘Score related Support’ and the subcategory ‘Organization Score Query’ to ensure your case goes to the correct team.
CDP Scoring resources
All mentioned resources in this article can be found on CDP’s website. The following direct links may be useful:
If you continue to experience issues after the following the guidance above, please contact CDP Support using the 'Contact Support' button at the end of this article. If you are raising a case directly through the My Support page in the CDP Help Center, please select the user type ‘I am a discloser’, the category ‘Score related Support’ and the subcategory ‘Organization Score Query’ to ensure your case goes to the correct team.
For any guidance on raising a support case or creating a Help Center account please refer to our How to raise a case in the CDP Help Center article.