CDP launches new emission reporting platform

Businesses responding to information requests from the investor-backed Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) should soon find it easier to report on their carbon emissions and climate change strategy, after the group announced it is to launch a new online reporting scheme.

The CDP said yesterday that it was working with IT firms SAP, Microsoft and Accenture to build a new data system designed to make it simpler for firms to submit information on their carbon footprint, and easier for institutional investors, regulators and other interested parties to analyse the carbon data that companies disclose.

The organisation said that the new online reporting platform and accompanying analysis tools would be available from next year and should make it easier for investors and executives to access the corporate climate change data they increasingly need to make informed financial and business decisions.

CDP chief executive Paul Dickinson said that the long-term goal for the new reporting platform was to integrate it with existing national carbon regulatory systems, providing a central global resource that allows businesses to compare performance and constantly monitor their progress against emissions targets. " This global hub of information will be essential to supporting a global deal post-Kyoto," he added.

Launched in 2000, the CDP has become an increasingly influential organisation and is now backed by 475 institutional investors, with combined assets under management in excess of $55 trillion.

It requests detailed information on carbon emissions and corporate climate change strategies from the world's largest firms, and has to date convinced around 2,500 global firms to voluntarily report on their carbon emissions.

Mark Foster, group chief executive for management consulting and global markets at Accenture, predicted that the new reporting platform would further cement the CDP's position as the corporate standard for greenhouse gas emissions reporting.

"The simplicity, standardisation and transparency of disclosure will make CDP the de facto process for reporting carbon emissions and an indispensible tool for helping the corporations and governments of the world take action,” he said, adding that those businesses reporting through the CDP had found that carbon disclosure was helping them to "mitigate investment risk and achieve more sustainable performance".

The announcement comes just days after the latest CDP report on the Global 500 firms found that the proportion of top companies responding to the organisations' information requests increased from 77 per cent in 2008 to 82 per cent a year later.