Plastic pollution is detrimental to our ecosystems, economies and communities. To be able to act effectively, companies must first develop a robust understanding of how they contribute to the plastic pollution crisis and the financial, commercial, legal, and reputational impacts, opportunities and risks they face as a result. Plastic-related disclosure at scale will be the foundation of transformative action. As a conclusion, In 2023, 7,000 companies have been requested to disclose on plastics for the first time through CDP’s water security questionnaire which consists of five to nine unscored questions that cover plastics-related business risks, targets, value chain mapping, and raw material content, among other topics. The reason why it is located in the water security questionnaire is there is a congruence between high impact sectors requested for Water Security and high impact Plastics sectors.

Aquatic plastic pollution is expected to triple over the next 20 years under a business-as-usual projection, therefore corporate disclosure of plastics impacts is an essential first step to keeping plastics out of the environment and restoring the health of our ocean and freshwater ecosystem.

However, plastic is a cross-thematic issue: its impacts span all elements of the environment. CDP will continue to consider how plastic is incorporated into the disclosure system in the coming years, to ensure we are reaching the right actors and sectors with the right questions.

For many companies, plastics will be a new area of focus, and thus CDP is prioritizing supporting companies through the disclosure process. A series of tools already exist which can help companies to gather the information they need to disclose for the first time such as IUCN Marine Plastic Footprint, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circulytics and Recycability Assesment Tools, WWF Resource Footprint Tracker, and some many more. Although the plan for future is to score plastic-related questions, this will not be the case for 2023 since it is a new topic for both CDP and disclosing companies. Not scoring gives companies time to develop their action plans on plastics, and the responses will allow CDP to refine its approach to plastics disclosure.

You can find more information from the plastics webpage of CDP.
To find out the plastic related questionnaire, click here.
Guidance document can be found here. 
To reach out technical note of CDP on plastic disclosure, please click here.