CDP Questionnaire 2025: What Changes and How Does It Differ for Large Corporates Compared to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)?

Since 2024, CDP has been offering, along with the comprehensive questionnaire for large corporations, a tailored questionnaire for SMEs. Sustainability managers at both corporate sizes should be familiar with the structure, scope, and requirements of each variant to report efficiently. In this article, we explore the differences between the CDP questionnaire for Corporates and SMEs and discuss the key new features in 2025 compared to 2024.

The Full Corporate Questionnaire 2025 – Structure and Scope

Large corporations with extensive resources typically participate in the 'Full Corporate Questionnaire'. This comprehensive CDP questionnaire covers all relevant environmental topics and is structured accordingly:

• Modules and Topics: The Corporate Questionnaire 2025 is divided into 13 modules. Modules 1 to 5 cover cross-cutting issues, i.e. Introduction and Framework (e.g. reporting boundary, organizational profile), Identification of Dependencies, Impacts, Risks & Opportunities, specific Risks & Opportunities, Governance and Business Strategy. From Module 6 onwards, the thematic focuses follow Environmental Performance/Metrics in various areas. Specifically, Module 6 includes methodological aspects of reporting (consolidation approaches), Module 7 focuses on Climate Change, Module 8 on Forests, Module 9 on Water Security, Module 10 on Plastic (newly introduced in the integrated approach), Module 11 on Biodiversity, Module 12 contains sector-specific questions for Financial Services, and Module 13 is for the final Confirmation and Signature (see official documents 1)

• Scope and Level of Detail: For a company reporting on all topics (climate, forest, water, biodiversity, plastic), the questionnaire may contain well over a hundred questions. Many questions are tabular with multiple sub-questions. For example, in the climate section, emission data (Scope 1, 2, 3) must be collected and supplemented with targets, reduction strategies, and risk mitigation measures. The forest module requires information on deforestation-relevant commodities (such as palm oil, soy, wood, beef), including risk mitigation mechanisms in the supply chain. The water module asks about water withdrawals, risk areas, and water management strategies. Since 2024, integrated questions on plastic and biodiversity have been added, now anchored in the questionnaire – even if these areas (still) are not scored 2. The level of detail is high in the Corporate Questionnaire: Many questions require both text descriptions and quantitative information; sometimes, documents must be uploaded or web links to policies provided.

• Requirements and Mandatory Disclosures: In the Corporate Questionnaire, certain key data must be disclosed to score better than a D. This includes, for example, the complete disclosure of Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, stating a climate target, a description of risk management processes, and formal board responsibility for climate issues. Without these elements, the score usually remains low, as CDP has defined so-called Essential Criteria that must at least be met 3. In 2025, for example, the indication of the reporting currency (Question 1.2) was explicitly made mandatory to maintain consistency in financial disclosures 4.

In summary, the Full Corporate Questionnaire is a comprehensive reporting tool that requires companies to engage in significant data collection and coordination. However, it also offers the opportunity to report extensively on all environmental aspects and receive a score in all categories (climate, water, forest) – provided the company is relevant in these areas. CDP explicitly states that not every company must complete all subject-specific modules.

The SME Questionnaire 2025 – Tailored for SMEs

For small and medium enterprises, CDP has developed a dedicated SME Questionnaire, first introduced in 2024. This SME questionnaire remains available in 2025, allowing eligible companies to participate in CDP reporting with less effort. The key features are:

• Eligibility: Not all companies may use the SME questionnaire. CDP defines thresholds based on the number of employees and revenue to distinguish who qualifies as an SME under CDP's criteria. Simplified, companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and under approximately 250 million USD/EUR revenue count as SMEs and can opt for the simplified version 5. As seen in CDP's official summary, the boundaries are flexible. If a company is just above the SME thresholds, CDP recommends the full questionnaire. Conversely, ambitious smaller firms can voluntarily complete the large questionnaire if they aim for an A-rating (more on that below).

• Structure and Focus: The SME Questionnaire 2025 comprises 8 modules, numbered as Modules 14 to 21. Modules 14–19 and 21 are integrated modules, containing questions that jointly address multiple environmental aspects (e.g. governance, targets, risks – spanning climate, forest, water). Module 20 is specifically dedicated to Climate Change 6. Practically, this means the SME questionnaire has a strong climate focus, but also covers basic questions on forest and water issues, allowing SMEs to find an entry point into these areas. Unlike large corporations, SMEs do not have to answer sector-specific data points (e.g. for particular CO₂-intensive industries). The volume of questions overall is significantly lower. The SME questionnaire includes fewer and simpler data points than the full questionnaire.

• Requirements and Emphasis: The SME questionnaire is primarily focused on climate data. CDP has determined that in 2025, SMEs should primarily disclose their climate strategy and emissions, while forest and water issues are queried but (still) not scored 7. Specifically, only the climate section is scored, and even here, CDP has simplified some indicators for SMEs. Required disclosures like emissions data remain relevant, but it is acknowledged that SMEs are often still developing their datasets. The focus aims to reduce the barrier for smaller firms to participate in CDP reporting.

Companies that fall under the SME definition can show transparency with significantly less effort and still receive a recognised CDP score (for climate). For large corporations, however, the Full Questionnaire is mandatory, as only this provides the depth and breadth needed to assess complex organisations properly.

Differences at a Glance: Corporate vs. SME Questionnaire

The main differences between the Corporate and SME questionnaires can be summarised as follows:

• Scope: The Corporate questionnaire is considerably longer and more detailed. It includes all topics (climate, forest, water, biodiversity, plastic) and sector-specific expansions. The SME questionnaire is shorter, focusing on climate and only briefly touching on forest/water.

• Modules: Corporate: 13 modules (some integrated, some thematic, plus possibly sector module). SME: 8 modules (7 integrated and 1 specific to climate).

• Scoring: For Corporates, every relevant area is evaluated separately (climate, forest, water each receive their own public grade). For SMEs, only the climate section is scored; forest and water data do not contribute to the rating. This means SMEs receive a final combined score (Climate D to B) – details are covered in the next section on the 2025 scoring methodology.

• Sector-specific Questions: Corporate: Yes, if applicable (CDP uses its sector classification system ACS to present additional questions to specific industries, e.g. energy-intensive sectors, financial services). SME: No, all participants of the SME questionnaire answer the same set of questions, regardless of the sector.

• Newly Added Topics: Both questionnaires have recently integrated topics such as Plastic and Biodiversity, but at varying depths. In Corporate, these are present as standalone modules 10 and 11 with numerous questions. In the SME questionnaire, individual questions on biodiversity/plastic may appear in integrated modules but are very limited and mainly qualitative.

Key Changes in 2025 Compared to 2024

Both in the Corporate and SME questionnaires, CDP emphasizes that only minimal changes were made in 2025 8. Following the major overhaul in 2024 (introduction of the integrated questionnaire design), 2025 focuses on stability to provide continuity to companies. Nonetheless, there are some updates and fine-tuning that CDP responsible parties should be aware of:

• Clarifications in Module 1 (Introduction): The disclosure of currency for financial information (Question 1.2) is now mandatory, to ensure that all figures in the questionnaire can be interpreted consistently. CDP has also provided additional guidance on boundary setting (“reporting boundary”) to help companies transparently report discrepancies between the CDP reporting boundary and, for example, financial consolidation. There are also new guidelines for reporting excluded business areas and their impact. In Question 1.24.1 (value chain mapping), a new dropdown option “Direct operations” was added to indicate that an aspect concerns only direct business activities 9.

• Technical Fixes and Minor Changes: In Module 2 (Identification of Risks/Opportunities), a technical error was fixed: The logic that controls which supplier stages are displayed for specific answers was corrected. Module 3 (concrete Risks & Opportunities) remained mostly unchanged, only dropdown lists were updated (e.g. selection options for regions, commodities, etc.) to ensure they are up to date.

• Governance and Strategy (Modules 4 & 5): Here, minor adjustments were made. A duplicate answer option in the question on governance mechanisms was removed to avoid redundancy. Additionally, dependencies between questions were adjusted – for example, a question about financial incentive structures (4.7) now only appears if relevant to the company (such as for financial services). In Module 5 (Business Strategy), guidance in a key question (5.2) was expanded to clarify that companies can use the data reported to CDP for other reports (e.g. TCFD, sustainability reports). This clarification aims to help reduce duplicate entries.

• No New Questions, But Fine-Tuning of Data Points: Overall, CDP has introduced no completely new question blocks in either the Corporate or SME questionnaire, which will likely come as a relief to many repeat participants.

• SME Questionnaire Remains Stable: For SMEs, there are no substantive changes in the question catalogue. The SME Questionnaire 2025 is practically identical to that of 2024 in terms of questions and structure. CDP deliberately refrained from changes, allowing smaller businesses to concentrate on the climate focus without having to relearn annually. The only adjustment concerns the general further development of guidance: CDP provides more assistance and examples to support SMEs in completing the questionnaire, as many are participating for the first time.

The 2025 changes are largely incremental – it is mainly fine-tuning and clarifications. Those familiar with the 2024 questionnaire will find no surprises in 2025 but should still consult the 'Key Changes' documents to avoid potential pitfalls 10.

How Are Companies Handling This?

SMEs that participated for the first time in 2024 can benefit from this experience and expand their climate dataset in 2025. Larger companies that may have struggled with the integrated format in 2024 can use the same structure in 2025 to optimize processes.

For companies reporting for the first time in 2025, intense weeks lie ahead. Using digital helpers can be key to easing the workload. Software solutions like turnus.ai, can automatically input qualitative and quantitative data into the CDP format template using AI and check for consistency.