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Cheap talk and cherry-picking: What ClimateBert has to say on corporate climate risk disclosures

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Listed:
  • Bingler, Julia Anna
  • Kraus, Mathias
  • Leippold, Markus
  • Webersinke, Nicolas

Abstract

Disclosure of climate-related financial risks greatly helps investors assess companies’ preparedness for climate change. Voluntary disclosures such as those based on the recommendations of the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) are being hailed as an effective measure for better climate risk management. We ask whether this expectation is justified. We do so by training ClimateBERT, a deep neural language model fine-tuned based on the language model BERT. In analyzing the disclosures of TCFD-supporting firms, ClimateBERT comes to the sobering conclusion that the firms’ TCFD support is mostly cheap talk and that firms cherry-pick to report primarily non-material climate risk information.

Suggested Citation

  • Bingler, Julia Anna & Kraus, Mathias & Leippold, Markus & Webersinke, Nicolas, 2022. "Cheap talk and cherry-picking: What ClimateBert has to say on corporate climate risk disclosures," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:47:y:2022:i:pb:s1544612322000897
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2022.102776
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate-risk disclosure; Voluntary reporting; TCFD recommendations; Natural language processing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • M48 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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