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Glossary
Water standards and regulation

What is CDP Water Security?

Definition

CDP water security is the water theme of CDP's annual corporate environmental disclosure, covering withdrawals, discharges, consumption, water risks, targets and governance, scored for investors and buyers.

Who discloses

Companies respond when investor signatories or customers in a supply chain program request it, or voluntarily. Since 2024 large companies answer the Full Corporate Questionnaire, one multi-theme questionnaire that replaced the three separate climate, forests and water security questionnaires, per CDP. A shorter SME questionnaire also exists.

2026 cycle and scoring

CDP says its 2026 disclosure cycle opens in June and runs for four months, closing in October. Water security keeps its own score inside the integrated questionnaire. Scores run from D minus to A across four levels: Disclosure, Awareness, Management and Leadership, each with a minus variant.

Facility-level water data for a CDP response

CDP asks for withdrawal, discharge and consumption figures, with facility detail for sites in water-stressed areas. Aqueduct holds those as metered line data per site, separates reuse flow from fresh supply, and flags months where meter coverage was low, so a disclosed total can be traced back to the lines that produced it.

Questions

CDP Water Security: common questions

CDP water security is the water part of CDP's yearly disclosure, which companies complete for investors and large customers. It asks how much water a company withdraws, discharges and consumes, where its risks sit and what targets it has, then scores the answers. Aqueduct's view is on the CDP climate and water page.

No law requires a CDP water response. Most companies respond because an investor signatory or a customer asked them to, and the request is made each year, so a supplier that ignores it can lose standing with a buyer that tracks responses in its procurement scorecard.

Both now sit in the same questionnaire. CDP climate scores emissions and transition planning; water security scores withdrawals, discharge, water risk and water targets, and each theme gets its own grade, so a company can lead on one theme and trail on the other.

Facility-level withdrawals, discharges and consumption with a clear method, plus targets tracked against measured results. Aqueduct supplies those totals per site from meters, flags low-coverage months and shows reductions against a weather-normalized baseline. CDP's scoring weighs disclosure and management, so the company still writes the narrative answers.

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Bring a site, a utility bill or a question. We will show you where the loss is.

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