How do I answer CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) question 7.1.1 about structural changes if we bought a workshop?

Question 7.1.1 asks if you had a structural change in the reporting year, or are now accounting for an earlier one. Tick acquisition, divestment, merger or other, name the organisation, and give the completion date and how ownership or control of the emitting activities moved.

When 7.1.1 shows up

Only if you answered No to question 7.1, which asks whether this is your first year of reporting emissions data to CDP. First-time responders never see it. CDP says its rationale is that a single structural change may not matter much, but the cumulative effect of several minor ones can change the base year emissions significantly.

The three columns

• Column 1, has there been a structural change: select all that apply from acquisition, divestment, merger, other structural change (please specify), or No.
• Column 2, name of organisation(s) acquired, divested from or merged with: up to 500 characters. It appears only if you ticked a Yes option.
• Column 3, details including completion dates: up to 2,500 characters. State the completion date and explain how the change affects the ownership or control of the emitting activities of the organisations involved. If there are several changes, say which completion date belongs to which organisation.

Two cases CDP asks you to include

Select No only if you had no structural change in the reporting year and are not accounting for a structural change that occurred in the previous reporting year. CDP says to consider minor changes too.

• A change that happened during the reporting year and is counted in this response, for example a company you bought and whose emissions are in your figures.
• A change from before the reporting year that you are only now counting. CDP gives the example of a company acquired in the previous reporting year but left out of last year's response in question 7.4.1 for lack of data, and now included.

Outsourcing counts as structural

CDP's explanation of terms says structural changes include mergers, acquisitions, divestments and the outsourcing or insourcing of emitting activities, and points to chapter 5 of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Standard. If you moved your delivery fleet to a transporter, read the linked answer on outsourcing before you tick No.

What happens next

If you tick any Yes option, question 7.1.3 follows and asks whether you recalculated the base year. That is where your significance threshold and the five answer options come in, covered in the linked 7.1.3 answer.

Example entries for a workshop bought on 1 February 2026

• Column 1: Yes, an acquisition.
• Column 2: Sharma Fabrication Works (example name).
• Column 3: Purchase completed 1 February 2026. We took ownership and operational control of the workshop and its furnace and generator on that date. Base year recalculated to include the workshop, because the change is above our significance threshold (or: below our threshold, so the base year is not recalculated).

Names and dates are an example. Use your own deal documents for the completion date. The Corporate Standard says a significant structural change part-way through the year is handled by recalculating the base year and current year for the whole year.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the litres, kilowatt hours and months are in one place to copy from. It does not enter your answers in the CDP portal, and refrigerant top-ups need your own service records.

• CDP 7.1.3: recalculating a base year
• CDP 7.4: what counts as an excluded source
• We bought a factory this year: base year
• Outsourcing or insourcing and the base year
• CDP and EcoVadis carbon questions, answered from bills

Sources: CDP, Full Corporate Questionnaire Module 7 reporting guidance (April 2025 edition)

Last reviewed 2026-11-06. Wording is from CDP guidance for its 2025 corporate questionnaire. CDP revises the questionnaire every year, so check the version your customer sent before you answer.