How Do You Get Suppliers to Respond to CDP?

Improve CDP supplier response by putting the request in front of the sustainability or environmental owner (not an old ERP purchasing contact), sending a clear customer email with why / what / when, following up through the CDP cycle deadlines, and escalating silent suppliers through procurement. Track Portal access, progress, submitted, and accepted separately. There is no reliable universal CDP response-rate benchmark for a member campaign — plan capacity around accepted disclosures and overdue next actions, not emails sent.

Why do most suppliers ignore the CDP request?

• Wrong contact: The CDP questionnaire lives in the Discloser Portal. Climate is always in the ask; forests and water appear by relevance or if you add them. If the request list still holds an old ERP purchasing contact, the questionnaire never reaches the person who can complete it.
• Platform email is not enough: CDP emails contacts on the request list from mail@cdp.net with Portal access instructions. Members still need to send their own customer email. CDP’s Supplier Engagement Guide 2026 notes that suppliers prioritize communications from buyers.
• No internal function: Mid-market suppliers may have never completed a CDP questionnaire.
• Effort: A first response pulls energy, emissions, and sometimes forests or water data from several departments.
• No consequence: One customer among many, no belief that silence costs them business.
• Assessment fatigue: Large suppliers already juggle CDP, EcoVadis, and custom forms from dozens of customers.

A sustainability lead at a Fortune 500 medical device company described the contact problem: “A lot of our purchase orders give us access to the financial folks. But those people change roles, they leave the company. It isn’t a sustainability person. So they just ignore the emails we send.”

How should you prioritize the supplier list?

Do not campaign everyone at once.

• Tier 1: Highest spend, highest climate or ESG risk, chemicals/raw materials/heavy manufacturing, sole-source or business-critical suppliers.
• Tier 2: Moderate spend and risk. Often the bulk of the list.
• Tier 3: Long tail. Address after Tier 1 and 2, or skip initially.

CDP selection guidance also points to high-emitting sectors, suppliers already disclosing to investors, and last year’s non-responders. Choose a batch size your team can support through the scoring deadline. A large request list without follow-up capacity creates a large silent list.

Who is the right contact at each supplier?

• Sustainability Manager or Director (ideal at larger companies)
• Environmental Manager or EHS Manager (common at manufacturers without a sustainability title)
• Quality Manager (overlap at some companies)
• General Manager or Owner (small suppliers)

Do not rely on the ERP contact. Contact discovery becomes its own project when a campaign covers hundreds of suppliers. See How Do You Find the Right Contact at a Supplier?.

What should the initial email include?

Keep it under 200 words. Suppliers need three things immediately:

1. What: “We are requesting that your company complete the CDP questionnaire in the Discloser Portal.” Name climate, and forests or water if you requested them.
2. Why for them: One CDP disclosure can serve multiple customers and investors. “Write once, read many” is clearer than “do this for us.”
3. When: The scoring deadline for this cycle, not a vague “please respond soon.”

Also include: your company name as their customer, how to reach the Portal (or the invitation they should already have), and the CDP Help Center for Portal access issues.

What follow-up cadence works?

Dates below are illustrative for the 2026 CDP cycle. They are week-commencing (w/c) and can change. Confirm the current year’s calendar before you lock outreach.

Touchpoint	Timing (2026, illustrative)	Action
Customer invite	Apr–May, after contacts validated	Your email with what / why / when
Portal open check	w/c Jun 15+	Confirm Portal access; chase suppliers with no login
Progress chase	Jul–Aug	Follow up on started but incomplete questionnaires
Scoring push	Before w/c Sep 14	Push for scored submissions
Final / unscored	Before w/c Oct 26	Last call for unscored responses and amendments
Feedback	After scores	Thank responders; record gaps for next cycle

A Senior SQE described the failure mode without a cadence: “You reach out 2, 3, 4, 5 times. Nobody responds. You just give up.”

Track Portal access, progress, submitted, and accepted as separate states. See How Do You Track a Supplier Sustainability Campaign?.

What escalation levers help with non-responders?

Procurement involvement: CDP guidance recommends involving procurement for the best results. Brief category owners early and give them a silent-supplier list, not a dump of the full request list.

Executive-to-executive: Your VP Procurement or CSO to their leadership. Use for strategic suppliers.

Commercial consequences (most effective):

• CDP disclosure required for contract renewal
• Weighted criterion in RFP evaluations
• Supplier scorecard inclusion
• Escalation to sourcing with documented non-response

Reframe the ask: One CDP disclosure serves requesting customers and investors. “Do this once, share everywhere” beats “do this for us.”

What do you do with permanent non-responders?

• Document every touchpoint for audit and stakeholder reporting.
• Use spend-based or industry-average estimates for portfolio-level Scope 3 where frameworks allow. See Supplier Emissions Data: How to Collect Scope 3 Data.
• Surface chronic non-participation to procurement as a risk signal.
• Decide whether and when to retry in the next cycle.

Frequently asked questions

Does CDP send the invitation automatically?

CDP emails contacts on the request list with Portal access instructions. That is not enough. Members still need to send their own customer email. CDP’s Supplier Engagement Guide 2026 notes that suppliers prioritize communications from customers.

How is EcoVadis different?

Same contact and follow-up dynamics, broader ESG scorecard instead of the CDP questionnaire. See How Do You Get Suppliers to Respond to EcoVadis?.

Should you request forests and water as well as climate?

Climate is always in the questionnaire. Forests and water appear by relevance to the supplier’s activities, or when you add them as an extra request. Only add them when you will use the answers.

Where Bridgecurrent fits

Bridgecurrent handles two labor-intensive parts of a CDP campaign: finding the sustainability contact at each supplier and automating follow-up until they respond or are flagged for escalation. See Scope 3 Supplier Engagement: How to Build and Run the Program for the wider program around the campaign.