"You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure":
Data-Driven Climate Action Examining
Where Korean Companies Stand on Disclosure Through CDP

Dayeon Lee, Senior Researcher, ESG Management Department,
Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (Department Head / CDP Korea Committee Manager)

is an interview series that shares the concerns and insights encountered firsthand in the field, through the voices of the researchers at the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (KoSIF) who lead global sustainability and ESG initiatives.

A company's response to the climate crisis begins with knowing precisely "how much greenhouse gas we are emitting." Only by measuring emissions as data and disclosing them transparently can a company set meaningful reduction targets and manage climate risk. Promoting the disclosure of corporate environmental and social information is one of the core activities of the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (KoSIF).

Among these, CDP is a global initiative that aligns precisely with the direction KoSIF pursues, in that it connects companies disclosing climate data with financial institutions that use it to manage investment risk. 

For this edition of , we met with Senior Researcher Dayeon Lee of the ESG Management Department, who handles the global initiatives that engage with companies. We talked about the significance of CDP, now a key requirement across global supply chains, and the current state of climate disclosure among Korean companies.

"Hello! I'm Dayeon Lee, Senior Researcher at the ESG Management Department of the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (KoSIF), where I lead our CDP work. The ESG Management Department I belong to focuses primarily on corporate engagement. CDP is our flagship program, but we also work on a range of global initiatives tied to sustainable management - RE100 for the transition to 100% renewable electricity, EV100 for accelerating corporate electric-vehicle adoption, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and CoREi for building renewable-energy procurement infrastructure for Korean companies, among others."

 PART 1  ESG, From a PR Tool to a Requirement for Global Survival

KoSIF has run the CDP Korea Committee since 2008, back when the very concept of ESG was unfamiliar in Korea. In the early days, even the top 50 companies by market capitalization hesitated to participate; today, the number of companies responding voluntarily to investor requests continues to grow, exceeding 300.  Senior Researcher Dayeon Lee says the mood on the ground has changed completely.

"In the early years, 'What is CDP?' was an everyday question. Now, the number of Korean companies asked to respond first by overseas clients, at the level of the global supply chain, has grown dramatically.
Climate information disclosure through CDP is no longer a matter of choice;

it has come to be accepted as an essential 'condition of doing business.'

"Flow chart of global environmental information requests and data provision through CDP

(Korea Sustainability Investing Forum) 

Today, some 22,000 companies, accounting for two-thirds of global market capitalization, and more than 600 financial institutions participate in CDP. Among the many rating bodies, the secret to CDP's strong credibility lies in the "source of its data." Rather than an indirect assessment based on external information, companies themselves report their greenhouse gas emissions, climate risks, and reduction targets in detail, which inevitably gives the data high accountability and reliability. 

By connecting corporate data disclosure (Disclose Data) with financial institutions' use of that data (Use Data),
CDP drives substantive climate action (CDP website)

 PART 2  A Diagnostic Tool That Goes Beyond Scores to transform a company’s ‘fundamental structure’

The core message CDP always emphasizes, so that companies can respond to an uncertain climate crisis, is "You can't manage what you don't measure." This is not merely about responding to an assessment, it is a philosophy that cuts to the essence of climate action.

"Filling in questions for the sake of a score, and collecting and analyzing data to understand the risks your own company will face, are different from the very starting point. To respond properly to the CDP questionnaire, a company must set its emissions boundaries, identify physical and transition risks by scenario, and link these to corresponding reduction targets and financial plans. This process itself is a diagnostic exercise that enables companies to assess their climate resilience."

TCFD¹, the accepted standard for climate disclosure, and the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board)² built upon it, as well as the ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards)³, are all deeply connected to CDP. "When TCFD first published its recommendations, it benchmarked the CDP questionnaire, and as soon as the TCFD recommendations were released in 2018, CDP revised its questionnaire to align with them. In effect, the formula 'CDP = TCFD' was established. Later, when the ISSB set the global standard for climate disclosure (IFRS S2), CDP overhauled its integrated questionnaire to fully align with IFRS S2."

 Current state of integration and alignment between CDP's questionnaire and other global sustainability frameworks (Source: CDP)

[Climate Disclosure Glossary]

¹TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures): ¹TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures): A global task force established in 2015 under the leadership of the Financial Stability Board (FSB). It developed recommendations for analyzing and disclosing the impact of the climate crisis on a company's financial condition across four areas, governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, which have now become the most essential backbone of global climate disclosure.

²ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board): A board established in 2021 by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation. It is unifying the many disparate ESG disclosure standards that had proliferated worldwide and establishing a "global standard for sustainability disclosure (IFRS S1 and S2)" that can be used commonly across global capital markets.

³ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards): A distinct ESG disclosure standard enacted by the European Union (EU). Under the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), it is a set of concrete reporting guidelines that companies operating within Europe must comply with on a mandatory basis. Its defining feature is that it adopts "double materiality" as a core principle—requiring companies to disclose both their impact on the environment and society and, conversely, the impact of external factors such as climate on the company's financial condition.

⁴TNFD (Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures): A global task force that extends the TCFD concept, which focused on climate change, into the domain of "natural ecosystems and biodiversity." It provides guidelines for the transparent disclosure of both the impact a company's business has on natural capital (water, soil, forests, and so on) and, conversely, the risks that ecosystem change or resource depletion pose to the company's financial condition.

Today, CDP does not stop here; it continues its alignment work with other major existing global disclosure standards such as the ESRS and TNFD⁴. In other words, a company that has responded properly to CDP will have built the basic fitness to respond relatively smoothly to whatever mandatory disclosure system is introduced in the future.

Thanks to its unrivaled interoperability and credibility, more than 22,000 companies, accounting for over two-thirds of global market capitalization, now disclose environmental information through CDP. In addition, more than 600 financial institutions participate as signatories requesting disclosure from companies, and cases in which large global corporate clients require CDP responses from suppliers within their supply chains are rapidly increasing. This is why CDP is now regarded as having moved beyond a simple assessment tool to become the most powerful "common language" for proving a company's climate competitiveness in markets worldwide.

 PART 3  PART 3 The Truth the Data Tells: "Korean Companies Are Already Ready"

So how strong is the actual disclosure capability of Korean companies? This past March, the "CDP Korea Report," which analyzes the current state of Korean companies' climate response, was published. Beyond being mere statistics, this report can be used as a "benchmarking tool" that allows companies and investors to gauge where they stand by sector and by size.

In particular, because it analyzes companies in direct comparison with the global standard IFRS S2, it serves as an objective indicator for measuring how prepared Korean companies are for the mandatory disclosure to come.

The Korea Sustainability Investing Forum, which runs the CDP Korea Committee, published the "2025 CDP Korea Report" this past March.

<View the Report>

However, Senior Researcher Dayeon Lee points out that there is a deep gap between the picture the data shows on the ground and government policy. The current draft of the government's ESG disclosure roadmap takes a conservative stance, citing "insufficient corporate readiness" as its rationale: it would make disclosure mandatory first for listed companies with assets of KRW 30 trillion or more starting in 2028, and defer Scope 3 emissions disclosure by three years. Yet the reality the CDP data reveals is entirely different.

"Hundreds of Korean companies already carry out climate disclosure voluntarily, including Scope 3.

According to 2025 CDP data, 91% of responding companies have board-level responsibility for climate change,

and 93% have climate risk management processes in place. 

In particular, the share of Korea's Top 100 companies that have established a transition plan aligned with

a 1.5°C scenario is 86%, far above the global average of 59%. With the number of companies reporting Scope 3 also steadily rising to 222,

the argument that 'companies aren't ready' simply doesn't match the data."

The "2025 CDP Korea Report," which analyzes the current state of Korean companies' climate response.
Contrary to the government's concerns, more than 200 companies are stepping up to report even Scope 3, which is difficult to calculate.

The Korea Sustainability Investing Forum is concerned that overly conservative disclosure standards could rebound as an even greater risk.

Global investors demand transparent, comparable data on which to base their investment decisions, and if Korea drifts away from international standards, they may turn away from the Korean market. Given the export-dependent structure of Korea's economy in particular, the country is already within the reach of powerful regulations such as the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). If domestic standards fail to keep pace, the paradoxical outcome would be a decline in overall corporate competitiveness, and even a disadvantage for the very companies that have proactively prepared for disclosure over many years.

Accordingly, KoSIF emphasizes that disclosure should be introduced early, starting with companies holding KRW 10 trillion or more in assets, and that the Scope 3 deferral period should be shortened to one year in line with global trends. KoSIF is discussing sound disclosure standards together with the legislature and various civil society groups.

To improve the ESG disclosure roadmap, the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum held a joint National Assembly press conference together
with five other organizations: the Emergency Climate Action lawmakers' group; the National Assembly ESG Forum
(represented by Co-Chair Rep. Byoung-dug Min); the Institute for Green Transformation; Plan 1.5; and Big Wave.
Prior to this, it delivered a joint letter with global investor associations such as the PRI and ACGA calling for the roadmap to be strengthened.

 PART 4  Beyond Carbon, to Water and Forests: "Transition Finance" That Creates Momentum

One of the major recent changes at CDP is the expansion of its assessment scope. Senior Researcher Dayeon Lee emphasizes that the risks companies face from the climate crisis no longer exist as the isolated issue of carbon emissions alone.

"The climate crisis does not, in fact, exist in isolation. When carbon emissions raise temperatures,
they lead to water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. The same is true of corporate risk.
For semiconductor manufacturers, water shortages translate directly into production disruptions,
and for food companies, biodiversity loss leads to a crisis in the raw-material supply chain.
CDP's expansion of its questionnaire to areas such as water security and forests reflects the interconnectedness of these real-world risks."

As the scope of risk broadens and grows more complex, the role of finance in helping companies achieve a safe soft landing into a low-carbon economy is also taking clearer shape. This is because shifting a business model itself toward a sustainable structure, beyond simply cutting carbon, requires enormous flows of capital to underpin it.

Amid this shift, Senior Researcher Dayeon Lee pointed to the "Transition Finance Guidelines" announced by the Financial Services Commission this year as important for practitioners. Transition finance is the concept of finance supporting the process by which carbon-intensive industries transform themselves into a low-carbon economy.

"For financial institutions to provide transition finance to a company, they must judge how concrete and
credible that company's low-carbon transition roadmap is. The key basis for that judgment is precisely the company's climate disclosure data.
Going forward, financial institutions will scrutinize disclosure information, including CDP data, even more closely when providing funding.
Beyond a simple declaration of targets, an era has arrived in which how concrete the underlying emissions data and
reduction pathways are is directly tied to real 'access to finance.'"

Ultimately, a CDP response is becoming more than a response to an assessment, it is becoming an indicator that proves a company's "capability" to earn trust and raise capital in the capital markets.

 PART 5  For the Overwhelmed Practitioner: The "First Step" Matters More Than Perfection

For practitioners who feel unable to even begin in the face of vast requirements, Senior Researcher Lee advises that "the biggest trap is the idea of waiting to start until you are perfectly prepared," and proposes a step-by-step approach.

"The first step is to calculate Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Clearly defining the organizational boundary and
gathering energy-use data is the very first thing to do. The second step is to identify, in the context of your own business, physical risks such as
extreme weather and floods, and transition risks such as carbon taxes and tighter regulation. 
The third is to set reduction targets to address these and draw up a roadmap for how to achieve them.

As for Scope 3, which many people find daunting, it doesn't have to be perfect from the start,
I recommend beginning with the core category that carries the greatest weight for your company."

The 2026 CDP Korea Conference was held this past March, along with an awards ceremony recognizing companies that
have responded outstandingly to the climate crisis.

As a think tank researching sustainability, KoSIF is stepping up to serve as a guide to help practitioners through this implementation journey. This past March, it held a specialized session on transition finance and mandatory disclosure through the "2026 CDP Korea Conference," which drew keen interest, with some 260 participants from policy, finance, and industry. On an ongoing basis, KoSIF provides reporting guidances, Scoring methodologies, and past reports free of charge through its website.

 Outro  Until Climate Disclosure Becomes the Language of Corporate Management

"Every year when this time comes around, I understand better than anyone how hard it is for the people in charge.
They hear 'Why is this taking so long?' from their superiors, cooperation from other departments is hard to come by...
I know full well that quietly filling in the questionnaire in the middle of all that is no easy task.

But that effort is by no means a small thing. Every single piece of data you build up in responding to CDP
becomes the basis on which our companies earn trust in global markets, and the standard by which investors evaluate Korean companies.
It's okay if your score isn't perfect right now.
What matters is the very direction of trying to disclose more accurately and more transparently each year."

Dayeon Lee, Senior Researcher (Head of the ESG Management Department), Korea Sustainability Investing Forum

Amid the vast current of climate transition, the people who drive real change are, in the end, the practitioners on the ground. The greatest source of motivation Dayeon Lee gains from her research at the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum is likewise the moment she witnesses the "growth" of those very practitioners.

"Personally, I feel the greatest sense of reward when I notice that the questions from corporate practitioners have changed.
People who at first asked basic questions like 'How do I set the organizational boundary?' or 'How do I calculate emissions?'
come back a few years later with far more concrete and in-depth questions,
about calculation methods for each Scope 3 category, setting an internal carbon price, or scenario-analysis methodologies.

As the number of companies whose questions rise to that level grows one by one,
I come to truly feel that climate disclosure is settling in as the language of corporate management, beyond mere compliance.
That is also the reason I keep doing this work."

Going forward, reliable climate data will establish itself as the most essential benchmark in corporate risk management and in setting global survival strategies. Amid this current of change, the Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (KoSIF) will continue to play its part—applying global standards in practical terms to the domestic market and guiding companies and financial institutions to translate them into actionable sustainability strategies.