Questionnaire Pathways Guidance Note

1. Introduction

1.1 Overview

• CDP and ICLEI have introduced three Questionnaire Pathways to reflect the different contexts of local governments and to further streamline climate-related reporting.
• The 2022 Cities Questionnaire is divided into three distinct pathways, an increase in the pathways is accompanied by an increase in the number of questions.
• Respondents will be recommended a pathway during the questionnaire activation process based upon their response to three questions but are provided the flexibility to select any pathway.
• Prior to submitting the response, respondents can always return to their dashboard and change the pathway selected. The pathway selected does not affect meeting the reporting requirements of the projects and initiatives the jurisdiction is participating in and it does not affect CDP scoring or Global Covenant of Mayor's badging.

1.2 Questions by pathway

• An increase in the pathways is accompanied by a gradual increase in the number of questions. A high-level breakdown is provided in the table below and the complete breakdown can be viewed in the Questionnaire Mapping Document.

Pathway	Number of Questions	View Questionnaire by Pathway
1	27	View the Pathway 1 Questionnaire
2	34	View the Pathway 2 Questionnaire
3	40	View the Pathway 3 Questionnaire

2. Process

2.1 Questionnaire Activation Process

• Respondents will be recommended a pathway during the questionnaire activation process based upon their response to three questions, however flexibility is provided so that any pathway can be selected.
• Respondents are required to activate their response each year, this five-step process (as outlined in the table below) now includes an additional step titled 'Questionnaire Pathway Selection'.

2.2 Questionnaire Pathway Selection

• The Questionnaire Pathway Selection is a 2-step process, in the first step 'Jurisdiction Details' the respondent responds to three questions and in the second step 'My Questionnaire Pathway' the respondent selects their pathway.
• Respondents will be presented with three questions in the Questionnaire Pathway Selection screen. The purpose of these questions is to inform the pathway that the responding jurisdiction will be recommended to report against. The questions request the respondent to select the options that most accurately reflect the jurisdictions population, emissions per capita and human development index.
• The options for both the emissions per capita and human development index are prepopulated based on the country of the responding jurisdiction, these selections can be changed by the jurisdiction should local and/or regional data be available and different to the prepopulated selection. Once the three questions have a response the recommended pathway can then be selected.
• The respondent can then proceed to the questionnaire using the recommended pathway by clicking the 'Enter questionnaire' button to the bottom right of the screen or the respondent can select any of the other two pathways by clicking on the link in the presented sentence 'To change your pathway, click here.' Once this link is clicked the other pathway options will be presented
• The questions and applicable responses are outlined in the table below while further information on the methodology for the recommendation is provided in Section 2.3.

2.3 Pathway recommendation calculation

The questionnaire pathway recommendation is based on the questionnaire pathway index value. The questionnaire pathway index is a summary measure related to the dimensions of population, emissions per capita and human development. In order to transform the indicators expressed in different units into indices between 0 and 1 each indicator is subdivided into three ranges and each range is assigned an index value. The geometric mean of these three indices is then used to generate the questionnaire pathway index value, as detailed in the tables below.

Dimension 1: Population

Indicator 2: Emissions per capita

Indicator 3: Human Development Index

Relationship of Index Value Geometric Mean and Recommended Questionnaire Pathway

HDI and Emissions Per Capita Prepopulated Responses

The response options for both the emissions per capita and human development index are prepopulated based on the country/region of the responding jurisdiction, these selections can be changed by the jurisdiction should local and/or regional data be available and different to the prepopulated selection. The table below indicates the response options prepopulates based on the country/region.