The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is a global system that tracks the carbon emissions and the environmental impact of different government entities and organizations. The CPD’s aim is to enable better climate action by providing standardized, accurate, and comprehensive reports about environmental impact. Environmental impact is measured in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and land use.
The CDP surveys calculate and asses emissions that come from energy sectors, businesses, and government organizations on a global scale. The CDP promotes transparency among groups looking to transition toward more environmentally sustainable business models. Of course, not everyone eagerly wishes to disclose their emissions, especially when there is no legally binding imperative to do so.
However, the CDP may be ushering in a new standard for businesses and energy producers. Managing our environmental impacts will require a detailed understanding of how people emit fossil fuels and use resources. A large portion of the CDP’s mission involves ensuring accuracy in their measuring technology. Without accurate data, assessments would be skewed, hampering our ability to track climate change mitigation performance.
Tracking mitigation efforts also involves collecting data from different sources with the same technology and the same measuring techniques, i.e. standardization, to avoid mismatches in data. Converting different types of data sets can be difficult and present biases.
How Does Disclosure Help?
The CDP believes that being aware of environmental impact can inform better decisions in the future and that disclosing allows groups to monitor progress toward net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades. Disclosure, among other things, renders a clear image of our behaviors’ implications on the natural systems of Earth, which we can use to set meaningful targets. Understanding water-use, land-use, and atmosphere-use gives corporations and policymakers practical insight for achieving mitigation and strategies for achieving those goals.
