Assessing the Credibility of Disclosed Corporate Engagements in Landscape and Jurisdictional Approaches

This paper introduces a maturity matrix developed by CDP to assess the credibility of disclosed landscape and jurisdictional approaches (LA/JA) in 2022. The matrix contains the core criteria of effective, robust approaches taken from work by CDP and other thought leaders. Within CDP, the matrix will be used to assess the quality of future LA/JA disclosure through CDP’s forests questionnaire.

CDP’s matrix states that a credible disclosed landscape and jurisdictional initiative must incorporate four key criteria. These are the scale of the initiative, whether there is a multi-stakeholder process or platform, the presence of collective goals and actions and transparent reporting or information systems. Based on these criteria, companies’ disclosure is assessed against three levels, which the paper outlines. These criteria are uncertain, partial or comprehensive. Since 2020, CDP has collected information on corporate engagement with landscape approaches through its forests questionnaire and holds the largest data repository on corporate engagements in LA/JA.