Consumers are fickle. They have many thoughts and opinions and may even be well-informed (but not always). This observation – hardly groundbreaking – is generally considered the cornerstone upon which Consumer Corner hangs its hat.
We have a long tradition of using robust methods of data collection and analysis to study consumer perceptions. One of our growing favorites is online media data. In this article, we use that lens to examine how Americans across different regions talk about Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) and related forms of sustainable investing. By looking at both the volume and sentiment of these conversations, we can gauge how visible these issues are in public discourse and whether the tone leans positive or negative at a given point in time. Online chatter is not the same as opinion polling, but it offers a useful complement – capturing spontaneous reactions unfolding in real time and providing another angle for policymakers, money managers, and consumers seeking to understand the climate of discussion around ESG.
Why study ESG conversations in the first place?
Among businesses and institutional investors, enthusiasm for ESG and related sustainable investment frameworks is unmistakable. Nearly all large publicly traded U.S. firms now report ESG metrics, and investment managers increasingly highlight ESG in their product offerings (Center for Audit Quality 2025; Gillan, Koch, and Starks 2021). This corporate and financial momentum often carries the presumption that the broader public shares the same interest. Yet if public support is weaker – or more skeptical – than assumed, that disconnect could have real consequences.
For money managers, conversations around ESG raise questions about fiduciary duty: should ESG and sustainability considerations be weighed if doing so is not clearly aligned with client preferences? For policymakers, the risk is that pushing ESG too far ahead of public sentiment could undermine confidence in financial markets, particularly in areas like retirement and pension funds where participation depends, in part, on trust.
Our aim is not to prove or disprove public enthusiasm for ESG. Rather, we use online conversations as a barometer of both interest and sentiment – an additional angle on how people talk about ESG in everyday online settings, and how that discourse might inform (or temper) its role in investing.
How we did it
We used the Quid online media listening platform to search and analyze online media content about ESG and related forms of sustainable investing – spanning online news, blogs, social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), and other forums. We included only posts geotagged by location where users’ regional origin could be identified. The search terms extended well beyond “ESG” and included phrases such as “sustainable investing,” “green funds,” “socially responsible investment,” “eco-friendly investing,” and similar variants. This ensured that the dataset captured broader public discourse around ESG and sustainable finance rather than a narrow slice of conversations tied to a single acronym.
Quid’s system relies on natural language processing (NLP) to categorize posts as positive, negative, or neutral. Between August 30, 2020, and September 1, 2024, this approach captured more than 1.5 million posts about ESG across U.S. regions: 353,950 from the Northeast; 407,270 from the West; 588,185 from the South; and 215,501 from the Midwest. Online media analysis is not a one-for-one substitute for surveys, focus groups, or other self-provided data. Still, the sheer volume of posts – captured live and over time – offers a dynamic window into how ESG is discussed across the country.
What we found
Across all four U.S. regions, the tone of ESG-related discussion trended downward over time. Figure 1 illustrates this shift by comparing the most prominent emotions expressed in 2020 (top) with those expressed in 2024 (bottom). In 2020, enthusiasm dominated the discourse nationwide, with positive terms appearing far more frequently than skeptical ones. While critical language was present even early on, it was comparatively limited relative to expressions of optimism.
In the Northeast, early enthusiasm (“great,” “best,” “pleased”) was already tempered by signs of skepticism. By 2024, negative terms dominated. The West began with largely upbeat expressions (“excited,” “love,” “great”), but by 2024 anger and doubt had taken hold. A similar story emerges in the South, where initial excitement gave way to blunt rejection, while in the Midwest words like “interest” and “success” gradually ceded ground to darker terms such as “scam” and even “devil.” Together, these snapshots suggest that while ESG entered the conversation with a measure of optimism in 2020, by 2024 negative framing had become far more prominent.
By construction, net sentiment is bounded between -100% and +100%. Using this measure, one pattern is unmistakable: sentiment declined nationwide. Conversations that leaned more positive in 2020 trended downward year after year, and by 2024 all regions averaged below zero—meaning negative posts outweighed positive ones.
That overall shift masks important regional differences. The South has consistently been the most negative, with net sentiment around –43% in 2024, below the Midwest (–30%), West (–23%), and Northeast (–24%). This pattern suggests skepticism about ESG has been most intense and sustained in the South, where terms like “scam” and “woke” dominated the discourse. The West, by contrast, began with more positive expressions than any other region, but the decline in sentiment there shows that enthusiasm has not been immune to the broader cooling trend. The Northeast and Midwest followed similar trajectories, beginning with mixed but hopeful tones and moving toward more negative framing. While the reasons for regional differences remain open to interpretation – ranging from political debates to local economic context – the data highlight that public conversations about ESG are not monolithic, and that regional nuance matters for anyone trying to understand the future of sustainable investing.
Our analysis shows that while ESG has become firmly embedded in corporate and investment practice, public conversations tell a more cautious story. Across regions, the tone of online discourse shifted from generally positive in 2020 to more negative by 2024, with the South showing the sharpest decline. This does not mean the public is uniformly opposed to ESG, but it does suggest that enthusiasm cannot be taken for granted. For policymakers, these findings highlight the importance of clarity and consistency in ESG standards. For money managers, they point to the need to balance fiduciary responsibilities with evolving public expectations. For consumers, the broader takeaway is that the way ESG is discussed in public forums reflects both genuine interest and real skepticism – factors that will shape how sustainable investing develops in practice.
At the same time, it is important to recognize the limits of these findings. As we noted at the outset, consumer views evolve with economic conditions, political debates, and social developments. What is true of online discourse between 2020 and 2024 may look quite different in the years ahead. Moreover, online media data cannot claim to represent the U.S. population as a whole. Some groups are more likely to post than others, and the loudest voices may not reflect the quieter majority. These caveats remind us that online media analysis is best viewed as a complement to more traditional data collection methods: it provides scale and immediacy, but not a perfect mirror of public opinion. Still, it serves as a valuable barometer of sentiment—one that decision makers can monitor alongside other tools to stay attuned to how ESG is being received in the public sphere.
