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The CDP 2026 Corporate Health Check, produced in collaboration with Oliver Wyman and published in January 2026, delivers a clear message: environmental leadership is no longer a trade-off with financial performance but increasingly a driver of resilience, growth, and competitive advantage. The report notes that “environmental leadership is proving to be an economic strategy as much as an environmental one” (CDP 2026 Corporate Health Check, p. 23). Drawing on disclosures from more than 10,000 companies worldwide, it shows how organisations that invest in high-quality environmental data, governance, and action are better positioned to navigate risk and unlock opportunity in an increasingly volatile world, while also revealing a widening gap between rising ambition and real execution.
Read the full CDP Report here: CDP Corporate Health Check 2026
Only 15% of companies assessed reached CDP’s leadership level, yet these organisations are clearly pulling ahead: climate leaders are reducing emissions at roughly four times the rate of their peers and have collectively realised $218 billion in environmental opportunities in the past 12 months, demonstrating that “leadership in disclosure is translating into economic benefits and positive environmental impact” (p. 8).
The report also challenges the long-held assumption that sustainability commitments slow growth, showing that in over half of all sectors analysed, climate leaders achieve equal or higher market capitalisation growth than companies at the lowest performance levels underscoring that “climate leadership and strong financial performance are not mutually exclusive” (p. 5). Ultimately, disclosure is not just about transparency, but a foundation for better decision-making.
Despite growing awareness of climate, water, and nature-related risks, the report exposes a critical bottleneck: execution lags behind understanding. Companies disclosing through CDP report $1.47 trillion in environmental physical risks, with over a quarter expected to materialise in the short term. Yet only 9% of companies disclosed investments in physical adaptation. This gap between risk identification and action is one of the most striking findings of the Health Check and one with real financial consequences.
The report identifies four levers that consistently distinguish leadership-level companies:
These levers are not about isolated initiatives; they require organisations to connect data across teams, years, frameworks, and value chains and to do so repeatedly, because “what gets measured gets managed, resulting in a measurable reduction in impact” (p. 10).
The Health Check reflects a reality sustainability teams know well: ESG data is becoming broader, deeper, and more interconnected. Companies are expected to disclose consistently across climate, water, forests, and value chains, while maintaining comparability and auditability. As expectations rise, ESG work increasingly resembles a data infrastructure challenge, not just a reporting exercise.
The report makes clear that leadership is built on repeatable, well-structured processes rather than one-off reporting cycles, yet many organisations still rely on fragmented documents, manual copy-paste workflows, and siloed teams to manage ESG information despite the fact that “disclosure is the essential starting point for both environmental and financial progress” (p. 8).
This is exactly where tools like Briink fit in. By helping organisations structure, reuse, and operationalise ESG data across disclosures, screenings, questionnaires, and due diligence requests to supplier and portfolio assessments. Briink enables teams to move faster while keeping data transparent, consistent, and verifiable through the extraction and mapping of relevant information from existing documents to new requirements.
The CDP 2026 Corporate Health Check sends a strong signal to the market: environmental leadership is no longer optional, and it is increasingly measurable in financial terms. But leadership does not start with perfect data or bold commitments. It starts with building systems that allow organisations to learn, improve, and act consistently over time. As disclosure expectations grow and scrutiny increases, the companies that succeed will be those that treat ESG data not as a reporting burden but as strategic infrastructure.
CDP is a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system. As the founder of environmental reporting, we believe in transparency and the power of data to drive change. Partnering with leaders in enterprise, capital, policy and science, we surface the information needed to enable Earth-positive decisions. We helped more than 22,100 companies and over 1,000 cities, states and regions disclose their environmental impacts in 2025. Financial institutions with more than a quarter of the world’s institutional assets use CDP data to help inform investment and lending decisions. Aligned with the ISSB’s climate standard, IFRS S2, as its foundational baseline, CDP integrates best practice reporting standards and frameworks in one place. Our team is truly global, united by our shared desire to build a world where people, planet and profit are truly balanced.
Briink is a leading AI partner for sustainability organisations, used by large enterprises, financial institutions, standard bodies, audit firms, and solution providers globally. Its technology automates the collection, extraction, and structuring of sustainability data across disclosure and assessment workflows. Briink supports key use cases including ratings, due diligence, supply-chain transparency, and sustainability intelligence—enabling faster, more reliable assessments and data-driven decision-making at scale.
Read the full CDP Report here: CDP Corporate Health Check 2026
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