Documenting Public Perceptions of ESG in the US and the UK

ESG has been embraced by institutions in the global business community as a framework of metrics to gauge a company’s performance, pushing beyond economic returns to consider environmental, social, and governance factors. Despite widespread adoption by businesses and investors, little is known about societal perceptions of ESG in different countries. We use online media platforms to study public perceptions about ESG in both the United States (US) and in the United Kingdom (UK) from September 1, 2020, to September 1, 2024. We analyzed 8.4 million news and social media mentions related to ESG in the US (7.2 million) and in the UK (1.2 million) and broke them down by social media versus news posts. Our results indicate that public perceptions are evolving differently in the US versus the UK over time. Generally, US media discusses ESG more negatively than in the UK. In both countries, news-generated media results maintained a positive net sentiment in the period studied. In the US, net sentiment started positive and became negative, whereas in the UK, net sentiment remained positive through the period of observation. Our results suggest that discussions of ESG in the news are generally more favorable than discussions of ESG on social media in both the US and the UK.