CDP, essentially the most extensively used platform for environmental disclosures, is shedding one-fifth of its workforce because it invests in improvements that the group mentioned will higher serve disclosing firms and customers of its knowledge.
The group didn’t present specifics on which departments can be affected, past saying that the cuts is not going to be focussed on particular areas and can happen this 12 months. As of March 2024, CDP employed 541 individuals in 15 nations, in line with its most up-to-date annual report.
The cuts come after a difficult 12 months for the group, which receives disclosures from greater than 23,000 firms yearly. A brand new questionnaire, which mixed beforehand separate requests for data on local weather, forests and water, proved time-consuming for firms to navigate, as did a brand new portal for submitting knowledge. Annual scores assigned to firms by CDP — based mostly on their disclosures and usually delivered earlier than the winter holidays — weren’t despatched out till February.
Rising prices
Working prices have additionally been rising quicker than earnings, famous Shannon Joly, CDP’s chief advertising and communications officer. The necessity to lower spending to deal with rising prices, along with the choice to shift spending towards improved know-how and processes, is behind the layoffs, she mentioned.
The overhaul of how CDP ingests and exports knowledge might be pushed by a number of new arrivals. Former Mastercard public coverage lead Sherry Madera took over as CEO in October 2023. She has since introduced in Ian Brocklehurst, a product and knowledge knowledgeable with expertise on the London Inventory Alternate who now runs CDP’s product work, and Chief Progress Officer Kari Stoever, who has a background in exterior relations.
Joly mentioned the group aspires to chop the time it takes to undergo CDP by 70 p.c. One technique might be a “use case” strategy to disclosure. Somewhat than asking all firms to reply an analogous set of questions, CDP will tailor its requests to swimsuit the wants of the disclosing firm. That might imply specializing in the information required beneath the European Union’s Company Sustainability Reporting Directive or on a particular set of questions posed by a significant investor.
International fragmentation
In parallel, Brocklehurst will modernize the programs that prospects equivalent to Bloomberg use to entry data from CDP, which now holds what the group says is the world’s largest assortment of knowledge on environmental motion. “We have to make it possible for we’re servicing purchasers as they might anticipate from any type of knowledge supplier,” mentioned Joly. The platform used for public entry to CDP disclosures, which has been unavailable for a number of months, might be open once more in coming months, she added.
Offering streamlined entry to sustainability knowledge is especially vital at a second when insurance policies and requirements referring to disclosure are in flux, famous Joly. “We’re working in a world of increasingly international fragmentation,” Joly mentioned, which reinforces the necessity for CDP to retain its place as a supplier of a “international, unbiased baseline” for sustainability knowledge.
