Disclosure Score Position Checker
A disclosure score measures how completely you answered — not how much you emit. Seven questions about what you are doing with yours, and this returns whether the conclusion you are drawing is one the result can actually support. It never asks what your score was.
A company can score well by disclosing thoroughly that it is doing very little. That is the mechanism working as designed, not a loophole — which is exactly why the score cannot carry a performance claim.
Seven questions, about a minute. A disclosure score measures how completely you answered — not how much you emit. This checks whether you are reading yours as what it is, and it never asks what the score was.
- Stop presenting the score as an environmental result. It measures how completely and consistently you answered a questionnaire — a company can score well by disclosing thoroughly that it is doing very little, and that is the mechanism working as designed rather than a loophole. Say what it is: strong disclosure. If the underlying position is not yet strong, the score cannot make it so, and the gap between the two is exactly what a sceptical reader will go looking for.
- Read the section-level breakdown rather than the headline. It is the only part of a disclosure score that tells you anything actionable, and it usually shows the result was driven by a handful of unanswered or thinly-evidenced sections rather than by anything about your emissions.
- Comparing your score against named competitors while presenting it as performance compares two things that are neither of them performance. Peers who disclose less will look worse than you regardless of what they emit, which is the comparison most likely to be challenged in public.
- The score is published without saying what it measures. Readers do not withhold interpretation — a letter grade beside an environmental report is read as an environmental grade, so leaving it unexplained produces the performance claim without anybody having made it.
What would change this verdict
- Scoring methodologies are revised, and a band can move without your disclosure changing at all — a year-on-year shift is a methodology question before it is a performance one.
- The gap between disclosure quality and underlying position closes from both ends. Improving the programme without improving the answers moves nothing, and vice versa.
How you are reading it — each test, where you stand, and the rule
| Test | Your position | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| What you use it for | In marketing or investor materialTreated as a resultopen | The score measures answering, not emitting |
| Where you stand | Scored wellA disclosure positionmet | A position on disclosure quality, nothing more |
| Underlying position | Early stageAssessed separatelymet | What you are actually doing is a separate question |
| Why it came out that way | Never looked at the breakdownNever examinedopen | The breakdown says which sections moved it |
| Submission completeness | Answered in fullCompletemet | Unanswered sections score as unanswered, not as absent |
| How you compare it | Against named competitorsAgainst named companiesmet | A disclosure comparison is not a performance comparison |
| What you say it means | We let it speak for itselfLeft to the readeropen | An unexplained grade is read as a performance grade |
Why this verdict: A disclosure score is being presented as an environmental result, and it does not measure one. What it measures is how completely and consistently a questionnaire was answered: whether sections were filled in, whether figures were accompanied by method and evidence, whether the submission was on time and internally consistent. A company can score well by disclosing thoroughly that it is doing very little, and that is the mechanism working exactly as intended. The reason this is the most serious position on the page is where it travels. A performance reading of a disclosure grade goes into investor material and marketing, gets repeated, and is almost never challenged internally because everyone would prefer it to be true. Scoring badly is a far smaller problem, because it is uncomfortable and therefore gets investigated.
This page never asks for your score, your band or your percentile, and never evaluates one — what it asks is what you are doing with the result. It tests the reading only. Whether your disclosure should improve, and whether your underlying programme should, are two separate questions and neither substitutes for the other.
Scoring methodologies are revised, and a band can move without your disclosure changing at all. We will email you when something this checker applies changes — not otherwise.
This checker applies the scope and purpose of the CDP climate questionnaire as our reviewed standards page records them. It does not read your submission or your score — it tells you whether the conclusion you are drawing from a disclosure result is one that result can support.
What this verdict means
Five positions, ordered by how wrong the belief behind each is. The top one is held by people who are pleased with their result.
Read as performance
A disclosure grade presented as an environmental one. It reaches investors and marketing, and nobody internally wants to challenge it.
Misattributed
The right conclusion from the wrong evidence — or a weak score read as an environmental failure when it is a reporting one.
Gap unexamined
The headline was read and the section breakdown was not. The breakdown is where the only actionable information lives.
Basis unstated
You understand what it measures and have not said so where it is published, so readers supply the interpretation.
Read correctly
Used for what it measures, breakdown understood, meaning stated.
What the score actually measures
A disclosure questionnaire is scored on the quality of the answering, and the criteria are explicit about it.
| It rewards | It does not measure |
|---|---|
| Sections answered rather than left blank | How much you emit |
| Figures accompanied by method and evidence | How fast you are reducing |
| Internal consistency across the submission | Whether your targets are credible |
| Submitting completely and on time | Whether your reductions are real |
A company can score well by disclosing thoroughly that it is doing very little. That is not a loophole being exploited — it is the mechanism working exactly as designed. The scheme exists to reward transparency, and transparency about a weak position is still transparency. Which is precisely why the score cannot be used as evidence of a strong one.
Why a bad score is usually good news
The inverse case is the one worth knowing about, and it is far more common than people expect.
A strong programme that answered badly scores badly. Unanswered sections score as unanswered — there is no credit for work you did and did not describe. So a poor result alongside an incomplete or late submission is a reporting problem, not an environmental one, and it is fixable by writing rather than by decarbonising.
That is the cheapest improvement available in this whole area, and it is routinely missed because a poor score feels like a verdict on the programme rather than on the paperwork. The scoring methodology makes the distinction explicit; the headline grade hides it.
The headline is the least useful part
A score compresses a long questionnaire into a single symbol, and two companies arriving at the same symbol can have done so for entirely unrelated reasons. The section-level breakdown is where the information is.
It usually shows the result was driven by a handful of unanswered or thinly-evidenced sections rather than by anything about emissions at all — which is both more actionable and more encouraging than the headline suggests. Reading it takes an afternoon and changes what you conclude about the year.
Comparing your score against named competitors while presenting it as performance compares two things, neither of which is performance. Peers who disclose less will look worse than you regardless of what they emit — and that is the comparison most likely to be challenged in public, because it is the easiest one to take apart.
What this checker does not decide
It does not ask what you scored. No band, no percentile, no number — what it asks is what you are doing with the result. Where you landed is not the question this page answers.
It does not tell you how to score better. That is the scoring methodology’s job, and the questionnaire calculator works through the sections.
It does not assess your programme. Whether your underlying carbon accounting is mature is a separate question with its own tool — the Carbon Accounting Maturity Assessment — and the gap between that answer and your score is the whole subject of this page.
And it is not a claims check. Whether a specific public statement is substantiated is the Greenwashing Risk Register.
How we keep this current
This page holds no emission factors, so nothing here moves when the factor corpus is refreshed. What it applies is the stated scope and purpose of the disclosure questionnaire as our reviewed standards page records it.
The thing that genuinely moves is the scoring methodology. Bands are re-weighted and criteria tightened between cycles, so a result can shift without your disclosure changing at all — which means a year-on-year change in score is a methodology question before it is a performance one, and treating it otherwise repeats the same error this page is about at a different scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. It means you answered completely and consistently, with method and evidence attached. A company can score well by disclosing thoroughly that it is doing very little, and that is the scheme working as designed rather than being gamed.
The scheme exists to reward transparency, and transparency about a weak position is still transparency — which is exactly why the score cannot be used as evidence of a strong one.
Usually not. A strong programme that answered badly scores badly, because unanswered sections score as unanswered and there is no credit for work you did and did not describe.
Check the submission first: incomplete sections and a late filing cap the result independently of everything you have actually done. That is the cheapest improvement available in this area.
You can say you disclose well, because that is what it measures. What you cannot do is present it as an environmental result, and the distinction is not pedantic — it is the difference between a claim that survives scrutiny and one that does not.
If the underlying performance is genuinely strong, say so with the figures that measure it. Using a disclosure grade instead invites a challenge you would otherwise win easily.
Because the headline compresses a long questionnaire into one symbol, and two companies reaching the same symbol can have done so for entirely unrelated reasons. The breakdown is the only part that tells you what to do.
It usually shows a handful of unanswered or thinly-evidenced sections rather than anything about emissions — more actionable, and more encouraging, than the grade suggests.
Check the methodology before checking yourselves. Bands are re-weighted and criteria tightened between cycles, so a result can move without your disclosure changing at all.
A year-on-year change in score is a methodology question before it is a performance one. Treating it otherwise repeats the same confusion this page is about, one level up.
As a disclosure comparison, that is exactly what it is for. As a performance comparison it is misleading, because peers who disclose less will look worse regardless of what they emit.
Naming competitors while implying performance is the version most likely to be challenged publicly, because it is the easiest one for somebody else to take apart.
Wherever you publish it, yes. Readers do not withhold interpretation — a letter grade sitting beside an environmental report is read as an environmental grade.
Leaving it unexplained therefore produces the performance claim without anybody having made it, which is the same outcome as asserting it and harder to defend afterwards.
Yes — as what it is. Scoring well is a real signal of reporting discipline, it is what many customers and investors actually request, and the process of answering surfaces gaps in your own inventory that nothing else would.
The error is not caring about the score. It is reading it as a measure of something it does not measure.