Does Climate Misinformation Affect ESG Performance? Evidence from Social Media and Firm-Level Data

This paper combines social media analytics with corporate performance data to test how misinformation surrounding climate change influences firms’ ESG outcomes.
James Kennon Rice
Under Review at Ecological Economics
2025-02-01

I integrate large-scale social media datasets with firm-level ESG indicators to evaluate whether the spread of climate misinformation depresses environmental, social, and governance performance. Using text mining to identify misinformation narratives and matching them to corporate disclosures, the study traces dynamic relationships between online discourse, capital markets, and sustainability metrics. The findings speak to the risks that disinformation poses for sustainable business practices and regulatory oversight.

Citation

Rice, James Kennon. (2025). “Does Climate Misinformation Affect ESG Performance? Evidence from Social Media and Firm-Level Data.” Under Review at Ecological Economics.