Greenwashing as the gap between talk and emissions
Greenwashing is one of the fastest-growing keywords in the finance journals, yet few papers measure it against emissions. Scored as the gap between what firms say about climate and what their emissions do, does greenwashing fool ESG raters, lenders or investors?
What prompted this
In the finance dashboard trends, "greenwashing" had 24 papers in July–September 2026 against about 13 expected from its earlier share. Since October 2025, 189 papers carry a greenwashing keyword (105 in finance, 37 in economics, 32 in management). Only 19 of them also carry "ESG ratings", and only 10 carry an emissions keyword, so most measure greenwashing from text or ratings alone.
Questions
- Does a firm-level "talk minus walk" score (the change in climate language minus the change in emissions intensity) predict later ESG rating changes, controversies or enforcement?
- Do ESG raters reward the talk? Do loan spreads and bond yields?
- Does the gap shrink after mandatory climate disclosure rules?
Data that could help
- Climate language in annual and sustainability reports, scored with a language model.
- Emissions and ratings from the ESG and energy categories of the dataset ranking, for example Trucost, CDP, Refinitiv ESG or MSCI ESG, or the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program for US plants.
- Staggered disclosure mandates as a difference-in-differences design, estimated with heterogeneity-robust methods.
Next step
Collect the 19 papers that pair greenwashing with ESG ratings and list how each one measures greenwashing.