Contents
- Step 1: Sign in to CDP’s Portal
- Step 2: Confirm the Submission Lead
- Step 3: Setup your questionnaire
- Step 4: Pathways selection (for Cities only)
- Pathway recommendation
- Step 5: Confirm your participation
Step 1: Sign in to CDP’s Portal
First, sign in to your CDP Portal. You will need to have registered an account and be added to your Portal as a Discloser Contributor. For more information, please see our article on accessing the CDP Portal as a Discloser and managing team members and their roles.
Step 2: Confirm the Submission Lead
When you sign in to your account you will be presented with the option to continue either as the Submission Lead or a Contributor for your organization. This step will assign your user permissions for the current disclosure cycle.
Important: Submission Lead permissions cannot be assigned to another user, you must choose to become the Submission Lead and accept the ‘Terms of disclosure’ at the same time.
If you have not been presented with the option outlined above, you can either click ‘Confirm Lead’ from the onboarding tile in your Portal homepage or navigate to the ‘Team members’ page by clicking the ‘Invite team members’ button found under your account name on the left navigation panel.
Once in the ‘Team members’ page, navigate to your contact and click the arrow () on the right hand side. This will open your contact details window, where you will be able to change your role from Discloser Contributor to Discloser Submission Lead.
Note: if there is more than one user for an organization, any Contributor can choose to become the Submission Lead at any time.
The Submission Lead role allows a user who is part of a disclosing organization to respond to new requests and opt in to projects.
Step 3: Set up your questionnaire
To begin the questionnaire set up process, click ‘Set up questionnaire’ from the onboarding tile that can be found in your Portal homepage.
Follow the steps on the ‘Set up your CDP questionnaire’ page to complete this step.
Step 4: Pathway selection (Only for Cities)
The 2025 Cities questionnaire is divided into three distinct pathways. These three pathways streamline reporting, allowing local jurisdictions to find the most appropriate questionnaire for their local context.
Users will be recommended a pathway during the questionnaire set-up process based on their response to three jurisdictional attributes.
Note: States and regions will not have this option.
An increase in the pathways is accompanied by an increase in the number of questions. The pathway selected does not affect meeting the reporting requirements of the projects and initiatives your jurisdiction is participating in, and it does not affect CDP scoring or Global Covenant of Mayors badging.
A high-level breakdown is provided in the table below, and a complete breakdown can be viewed in Appendices D and E of the Cities questionnaire guidance.
| Pathway | Number of questions |
| 1 | 28 |
| 2 | 35 |
| 3 | 45 |
During the questionnaire activation process, responders will be presented with three questions that inform the recommendation of a pathway. These questions request the responder to select the options that most accurately reflect three attributes:
- Jurisdiction population,
- Per capita emissions,
- Human Development Index (HDI).
The options for both the emissions per capita and HDI are prepopulated based on the country/area/region of the responding jurisdiction. The pre-population is based on national-level data and can be changed should local and/or regional data be available and different to the prepopulated selection, or when the jurisdiction’s total emissions per capita (at least scope 1 and 2 or GPC-aligned BASIC) is different.
The responder can then proceed to the questionnaire using the recommended pathway, or they can select either of the other two pathways. ICLEI Network Cities are encouraged to report to Pathway 3.
Step 5: Confirm your participation
The final step involves confirming your participation in the current disclosure cycle. To do this you will need to navigate to your ‘Organization details’ page, by either clicking the ‘Show Organizations Details’ button found at the top of your Portal homepage next to your organization name or by clicking the ‘Confirm participation’ button on the onboarding tile.
In the ‘Organization details’ page, scroll down to the ‘Confirm your participation in 2025 Disclosure Cycle’ section at the bottom and select ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, then click the red ‘Save changes’ button to confirm your selection.
Please note this will inform your Requester(s) of your intentions to disclose during this cycle.
The data you enter in each step will be saved, and you can navigate back to the homepage at any point while you complete the questionnaire setup process. Once you have completed the questionnaire setup process you will be able to begin responding to your questionnaire.
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