CDP Plastics Disclosure Changes

Jessica Onyshko

Director

North America

Close

Jessica Onyshko

Jessica leads global initiatives in product sustainability and chemistry, guiding organisations to integrate data-driven innovation and sustainable materials strategies.

Contact Jessica Onyshko View full profile

Contents

• What is the plastics disclosure?
• Key questionnaire differences
• How to prepare
• Three-step assessment process for reporting
• How Anthesis can help

Share this article

• Share via Linkedin
• Share via Facebook
• Share via X
• Share via Email

CDP Disclosure season has begun and if your company uses plastics, there are some important changes to the CDP reporting questionnaire that you need to know.

What is the CDP plastics disclosure?

In January 2023, CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) updated its water questionnaire to include a new module assessing the risks of plastics pollution to water security. The new module is informed by existing plastic disclosure frameworks such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UNEP’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment framework. Any company that uses, produces, or commercialises plastics falls within the scope of the disclosure.

The Water Security questionnaire W10 consists of nine plastics-related questions. Companies are being requested to disclose information on whether they have:

• Mapped the weight and types of plastic products and packaging across the value chain.
• Assessed human and environmental concerns related to plastics used or produced within the value chain.
• Assessed plastics-related financial or strategic risks along the value chain.
• Set plastic targets across products and/or packaging.
• Eliminated problematic and/or unnecessary plastics in products and/or packaging.
• Adopted reuse models.

In 2023, CDP asked 7,000 companies to answer these nine questions regarding their understanding of their plastic footprint. However, CDP reported that only 2,962 companies (42%) provided responses to the water security questionnaire for 2023 and that most of them did not report plastic-related risks.

Key differences in the 2024 CDP questionnaire

For the CDP 2024 Questionnaire, CDP is asking all disclosing companies, over 23,000 in total, to disclose their plastics risks and their risk mitigation efforts as part of an integrated questionnaire.

Some companies in high-impact sectors will get additional questions. However, as in 2023, the responses to the Plastics questions will not be scored by CDP in 2024, as CDP recognizes that many companies are in the early stages of developing their action, accountability, and reporting on plastics.

There are also some significant changes to the questionnaire. Namely, plastics questions are now incorporated throughout the questionnaire, signaling the potential impacts to climate and nature. Plastics are no longer siloed within the Water Security questionnaire. Instead, they are embedded across the environmental domain, in particular in Section 10: Environmental Performance – Plastics.

2024 questionnaire changes

The 2024 changes to Section 10: Environmental Performance – Plastics include:

• Mapped plastics use – 1.24.1 (W10.1): Have you mapped where in your direct operations or elsewhere in your value chain plastics are produced, commercialized, used, and/or disposed of? Reasons are requested for a “No” response.
• Plastic targets & metrics – 10.1 (W10.4): Do you have plastics related targets, and if so what type? Target type and metric required.
• Business activities – 10.2 (W10.5): Indicate whether your organisation engages in plastics-related activities (e.g., production/commercialisation, packaging, services, waste management, financial products).
• Quantitative disclosures – 10.3 (W10.6): Provide the total weight of plastic polymers sold and indicate the raw material content (virgin, renewable and recycled content percentage).
  • 10.4 (W10.7): Provide the total weight of plastic durable goods/components sold and indicate the raw material content.
  • 10.5 (W10.8): Provide the total weight of plastic packaging sold and/or used, and indicate the raw material content.
• Circularity potential – 10.5.1 (W10.8a): Indicate the circularity potential of the plastic packaging you sold and/or used (reusable, technically recyclable, recycled in practice and at scale).
• End of life waste – 10.6 (NEW): Provide the total weight of waste generated by the plastic you produce, commercialise, use and/or process and indicate the end-of-life management pathways.

By adding the mapping question 1.24.1 to the Introduction section of the questionnaire, an expectation of disclosure is being established as the very minimum.

2024 Questions (2023 Analog)	Requested Responses
1.24.1 (W10.1) Have you mapped where in your direct operations or elsewhere in your value chain plastics are produced, commercialized, used, and/or disposed of?	Yes No and planned No and not planned Upstream Downstream End of life Other *Reasons are requested for a No response.
(W10.2) Deleted
(W10.3) Deleted
10.1 (W10.4) Do you have plastics related targets, and if so what type?	Target type and metric required
10.2 (W10.5) Indicate whether your organization engages in the following activities.	Production/commercialization of plastic polymers (including plastic converters), durable plastic goods and/or components (including mixed materials). Usage of durable plastics goods and/or components (including mixed materials), Production/commercialization of plastic packaging, goods/products packaged in plastics. Provision/commercialization of services that use plastic packaging (e.g., food services), waste management and/or water management services, financial products and/or services for plastics-related activities. Other activities not specified.
10.3 (W10.6) Provide the total weight of plastic polymers sold and indicate the raw material content.	Total weight of plastic polymers sold (MT). Virgin, renewable and recycled content percentage.
10.4 (W10.7) Provide the total weight of plastic durable goods/components sold and indicate the raw material content.	Total weight of plastic polymers sold (MT). Virgin, renewable and recycled content percentage.
10.5 (W10.8) Provide the total weight of plastic packaging sold and/or used, and indicate the raw material content.	Plastic packaging sold, used (MT). Virgin, renewable and recycled content percentage.
10.5.1 (W10.8a) Indicate the circularity potential of the plastic packaging you sold and/ or used.	Plastic packaging sold, used (MT). Reusable, technically recyclable, recycled in practice and at scale percentage.
10.6 (NEW) Provide the total weight of waste generated by the plastic you produce, commercialize, use and/or process and indicate the end-of-life management pathways.	Production, commercialization, usage, processing (MT). End of life management pathway percentage.

What can your company do to prepare?

1. Understand your plastics: Where do they come from? How are they used? What is their end-of-life fate? To help answer these questions, Anthesis supported the WWF in building the ReSource Plastic Footprint Tracker to provide brands with the ability to map the fate of their plastic packaging around the world.
2. Understand your plastic usage: A packaging baseline can give you insight into plastic used to produce and package each item you produce. A supplier engagement activity is usually part of this process to fill in the information gaps. A properly built baseline can also support goal tracking and compliance reporting.
3. Set impactful targets: An essential element of any sustainability plan is goals and targets that are rooted in reducing the environmental and social impacts of consumption. While it is important to reduce the effects of unmanaged waste on our ecosystem, we have reached a tipping point where these targets need to be assessed by climate-change impact, too. Targets should best match the concerns of all stakeholders and be holistic in their scope.

Three-Step plastics assessment for CDP reporting

Most companies will need to assess their current corporate plastic situation as it relates to plastic products and packaging for CDP reporting. We recommend the following 3-part assessment.

1. Conduct a plastics baseline assessment. For most companies, the first step to enable plastics reporting is conducting a baseline assessment. It’s important to remember that every organisation’s baseline looks different and is largely contingent on the company’s ability to track and manage plastic-related data. A baseline assessment helps to identify where plastics are used within the company’s products and operations. This assessment will help identify types and volumes of specific plastics used with products and packaging. From there, the company is best equipped to map plastics further across the value chain.
2. Map the plastics value chain. A value chain is a series of consecutive steps that go into the creation of a finished product or packaging – from start (e.g., initial design) to finish (e.g., its arrival at a customer’s doorstep). Mapping the value chain will help to identify where plastics are used across the value chain.
3. Identify plastic-related risks, opportunities, and circularity potential. Mapping the value chain not only helps identify where plastics are used across the value chain, but also provides insight into value chain risks and opportunities related to plastic use, reduction, elimination, and/or circularity potential. Where relevant and feasible, this assessment should ideally include an identification of raw materials used in plastics products and packaging.

Developing a plastics strategy, roadmap, and action plan

Once the analytics are completed – the next step is to develop a strategy, roadmap, and action plan on how to address plastics used in products and packaging.

This should reflect:

• The outcomes of the analytics phase, and how they impact the overall strategy and roadmap
• The business priorities related to plastics
• Corporate policy or position on plastics across product and packaging portfolios
• Any plastic related targets related to reduction and/or elimination
• Any product and/or packaging redesign needed for plastic reduction or improving circularity
• The viability of recycled content or alternative materials
• How transitioning to a circular business model can bring a sustainable advantage
• The roadmap and timeframe for plastics reduction activities
• Actionable next steps that should be taken to address plastics and enable CDP disclosure

The implementation phase should operationalise the strategy through policies and processes, and disclosure should be updated annually to CDP.

Implementing and operationalising the plastics strategy

Once the strategy, roadmap, and action plan have been developed, socialised, and agreed upon by relevant stakeholders, the implementation process must begin. While every organisation’s journey will be different based on their level of maturity, the following tasks should be considered for implementation:

• Implement the plastics strategy, roadmap, and action plan with policies, processes, and procedures that help operationalise it.
• Disclose progress to CDP annually.
• Hear from Anthesis experts as they discuss how you can improve your CDP score.

How can Anthesis help?

Anthesis have extensive experience supporting companies to understand, strategise, and progress their sustainability and ESG objectives. Our team includes experienced CDP practitioners and sustainable production experts, covering products, packaging, and waste recovery.

We have honed our methodology for baseline assessments and specialise in advising complex organisations with global supply chains. Our life-cycle assessment (LCA) experts can also support in setting objectives that make sustainable sense for your business and stakeholders.